The Irish Film Institute have, understandably, built up an amazing archive of Dublin footage over the years. Sometimes, like with the fantastic Irish Destiny (the 1926 homemade film which premiered on Easter Sunday of that year) this footage can become DVD chart-topping stuff. In most cases however, the footage isn’t quite as historically popular as Irish Destiny and interesting as it often is- it remains unseen by the masses.
From January 2010 however, the IFI will be showing some of their fantastic archival footage at lunchtimes- and for free. All the screenings are under 30 minutes long, and the first two deal with 1970s Dublin. Produced by members of the Guinness Film Society, the films offer a unique insight into the Dublin of the period.
The first film, Cill Cheannaigh looks as odd as it does fascinating. Set in Cornelscourt Shopping Centre (Or eh….Dunnes Stores to be exact) the short documentary looks at and engages with the mix of families, teenagers and (or so the website tells me..) priests that pass through the aisles of the South Dublin branch. This was the first Dunnes. Wow.
The second work, Liffey Faces, looks a bit more easy to work out. Going from Kippure to Poolbeg, we get an insight into life on the liffey with everything from the Liffey Swim to the Islandbridge rowers featured. Like Cill Cheannaigh, this one was produced in 1970.
The films will screen at lunch time each week on Monday and Wednesday, and on one Saturday each month, with more info on www.irishfilm.ie
Click on the book for more.
Click on the book for more.
Donal
Ciarán
Sam
Come Here To Me! 
I caught this double screening yesterday lunchtime: an hour very well spent (and indeed free). The first film Ciall Cheannaigh, shot in black and white, runs through a day in the life of the Dunnes Stores in Cornelscourt, presumably in the summer of 1970. This huge shop was, as far as I remember, the first out-of-town supermarket to ape the hyper-marchés springing up outside French towns at the time, the Cornelscourt shop possibly a result of the construction of the estates at Ballybrack and elsewhere in the immediate vicinity. This introduced a new population into what had previously been the sedate (and Anglican) Foxrock, where the week’s groceries would undoubtedly have been delivered from Findlater’s in town.
The lens throws a sometimes lascivious focus on the women in the shop, albeit one which is hardly ever unkind. A similar exercise today would probably make more of the tits and bums, and indeed, quite enough is made of the tits and bums if a traditional interpretation is taken of the accepted mores of the times that were in it. Very few of the people seem aware of the camera; those that are ignore it after an initial facial recognition, presumably images of those who reacted differently remained on the cutting room floor.
A couple of impressions linger which I’ll throw out here in no particular order: as you look at the footage you’re struck by the amount of dads looking after their children, surely a phenomenon of a post-feminist society, rather than a country struggling with modernity? Another general impression is of the amount of hipsters present about the place, just out doing the shopping. Skirts are short, trousers… eh… comfortable. Hey even the guys look good, lots of funky shades and architectural beards with well-cut jackets over buttoned tee shirts. The clothes are fab. We were indeed a good looking crowd in 1970, I wonder what happened in the meanwhile?
The images of children throughout are affectionate and well within the ‘aren’t they cute?’ parameter. Can you leave a camera running today on a toddler biting into a bar of soap while left unattended, sitting up on a shopping trolley? I suppose it depends on the child! Another kid eats a banana on the trolley, chucking each section of peel he takes off onto the shop-floor. We weren’t treated to someone falling on their arse as a consequence (we’ll leave that sort of thing to RTÉ).
Clothes shopping appears to have been an activity left to the ladies and there is much knicker fingering and expert bra appraisal. Susan Hunter’s it ain’t. A woman tries on two skirts in middle distance, her modesty protected by two full-length mirrors. Another appears to secrete an undergarment in her handbag. Another examines several bras surrounded by her children, only one of which (a boy) demonstrates any interest in her dilemma. Eventually she appears to bribe them to make them go away.
The packaging is familiar from the dim memories of my youth, with boxes of Kellogg’s Cornflakes more of less unchanged to this day. A large sign hanging from the ceiling advertises the delights of Robert Robert’s ground coffee, a delight I’d imagine reserved for the more affluent customers. But here’s another issue, the film depicts a full shop, with trolleys much fuller than what you’d see today, surely demonstrating a suburban affluence which conflicts with my experiences of the period and indeed the subsequent literature. Inherent is a classlessness which surely must be contrived?
The opening and closing shots speed up the action in the huge car park. This raises another question regarding the material culture and social expectations of those depicted, most of whom must have arrived by car. Did Dunnes anticipate the level of car ownership or was the future there already?
Linking the two films is Dónal Lunny, a member of a popular folk group Emmet Spiceland, who were, according to their Wiki entry ‘widely and affectionately described at the time as what today would be called a ‘boy band”. He was to play a central role in the formation of Planxty, the Bothy Band and Moving Hearts. Musically, both films hum from different places. The score on Ciall Cheannaigh would seem to be preformed by Sweeney’s Men and takes the form of an extended Appalachian breakdown, with Terry Woods twanging a tasty guitar, keeping the foot tapping for the whole of 16 minutes. Does anyone know anything about this?
The score for Liffey Faces is also by Lunny but the performance is credited to Emmet Spiceland. The more pastoral tunes (performed initially by Lunny on his own) look more to eastern Europe than the States and for the first half of the film the music doesn’t jar with the languid shots of the upper reaches of the Liffey, where a young boy launches a model boat above Poulaphouca.
The film follows the boat downstream and its successful passage through the dam at the head of the reservoir indicates that there are no further surprises of an unpleasant nature ahead. The voyage interacts with those using the river with shots of the Liffey Descent and the Liffey Swim, interspersed in the city with long shots of passers-by. The only folk who attempt to impede the boat’s progress are rowers at Islandbridge and one bloke, presumably an actor pretending to be drunk in charge of a small dog, who throws his empty bottle of Smithwick’s at the poor boat from Victoria Quay.
An interesting sequence is laced with someone’s existential drama (ok, probably my own). A woman, perhaps a model this time, manhandles a large dog from a now-demolished building on Ormond Quay, bringing it southside across the river where a hackney driver helps both of them into the back of his horse-drawn cab. The clothes are fab, what can I say!
As the boat negotiates the Liffey Swimmers and the Ringsend Regatta, three guys walk along the quays, one strumming a guitar, the soundtrack having changed to an inoffensive Báidín Fhelimidh in three-part harmony. The lads continue eastwards, tracking the boat along the Great South Wall until they get to the very end, the camera closing on the little boat as it heads out into the Irish Sea.
Both films were produced by Mike Lawlor and the Guinness Film Society and can be seen at the IFI each Monday and Wednesday for what’s left of the month, with a screening on Saturday 30th.
Cheers for that anarchaeologist. Great review.
I look forward to seeing what the IFI pull out of the archives for February.
Thanks a lot anarchaeologist, fantastic stuff. I didn’t know anything about Donal Lunnys collection. My claim to fame is an entire Planxty/Moving Hearts Irish releases LP collection that was passed down, amazing.
I caught another screening last night with a distinctly Dublin theme, Joe Lee’s Bananas on the Breadboard, a 50 minute essay on street trading in the north inner city. Narrated by a trader, the documentary uses a mixture of interviews, contemporary footage, photographs and newsreel to contextualise the lives of the street traders historically (and indeed archaeologically) and in a way which was refreshingly political.
The event was launched in the Lighthouse Cinema in Smithfield by Maureen O’Sullivan, political successor of the late Tony Gregory, a man who championed those who make their living selling everything from fruit and veg to fish, bangers, sparklers and the last of the wrapping paper on the streets of Dublin. A frail but undefeated Gregory gave his last screen interview to the project, however any poignancy was lost in the humour.
For me anyway the central story was set firmly in the ’80s, just as the inner city was really beginning to feel the effects of the smack epidemic which continued until the dealers were forced out of the area by the communities several years later. By this stage, business interests wanted rid of the traders, people who as Gregory put it, lived locally and had as much right to make their living off the streets as those who owned Roches or Arnotts and who lived… wherever (but not obviously locally). The cops, working as ever on behalf of these interests, started arresting traders under arcane legislation and no quarter was given. One woman was brought to Store Street, put in a cell and forgotten about; the cop had gone home by the time he’d remembered her.
It all came to a head with a demonstration at the GPO (where else?) which turned nasty when the cops tried to enforce heavy manners with their batons. Gregory, Christy Burke and a trader whose name I didn’t catch were arrested and taken away in a cop van. However some traders stopped the van, kicked open the door and de-arrested the public representatives. Burke was re-arrested immediately but Gregory escaped to be caught and brought to the ‘Joy later on.
As Gregory pointed out, his spending a few days in prison was nothing much; it was a different kettle of fish (oh dear!) for a trader who depended on the streets for a living. Remember, all this was happening when smack was being sold openly on the streets, under the snouts of the very cops who were busily trying to catch the street traders and confiscate their wares…
The Corpo finally copped on and sorted out regular pitches, which is where we are today.
The film does much to celebrate the working lives of women in the community in a way which doesn’t go for the auld Dub and coddle nostalgia you unfortunately get whenever someone sets up a camera in the Liberties. Maybe its a northsider thing.
I don’t know when Bananas on the Breadboard will get a public screening but it should turn up on the telescreen soon enough. If you can’t wait, it’s available on DVD. Well worth checking out.