New TG4 series Éire na Nuachtscannán (Ireland in the Newsreels) starts Thursday 21st September at 8pm.

19 Sep 2017

Showcasing a range of rare archival footage, this 6 part series will show how some of Ireland’s most important stories were handled by newsreel editors trying to cater for audiences with a wide and shifting range of political allegiances.

Funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, the six part television series Éire na Nuachtscannán (Ireland in the Newsreels) is a collaboration between Mac Dara Ó Curraidhín (LM DÓC) and Ciara Chambers (Lecturer in Film and Screen Media, University College Cork). 

Click on the image below to watch the promo.

Cinema newsreels were the only source of on-screen news available to the general public during the first half of the twentieth century. Since there was no sustained newsreel industry in Ireland, Irish audiences were mostly catered for by external companies, often with startling results.

This 6 part series will show how some of Ireland’s most important stories were handled by newsreel editors trying to cater for audiences with a wide and shifting range of political allegiances. Events like the Easter Rising, the War of Independence, the Civil War and the Second World War were often steeped in controversy as producers struggled with the complexities of Ireland’s unfolding internal conflicts and the evolution of separate identities north and south post-partition. Showcasing a range of rare archival footage, the series will also explore how the newsreels celebrated sports, fads, fashions and inventions and attempted to compete with the earth-shattering advent of television.

http://www.irelandinthenewsreels.com

Click on the image below to watch clip 'The Irish Question', March of Time 1944.