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Tonight sees the first screening in NI of newsreel shot here by film makers from the Republic in the early 1960s. Producer Joe Marcus says they provide a fascinating glimpse of how others saw us.
About 15 years ago, while living in my native Dublin, I edited a six-part series for RTE, using a little known Irish cinema archive. Amharc Eireann (View of Ireland) was filmed all over the island and shown in cinemas in the Republic each week from 1959 to 1964, in an effort to promote the use of Irish.
Northern Ireland didn't feature much in RTE's thinking in the mid-nineties, so most of the material from the archive that was filmed north of the border, ended up on the cutting room floor, never to be seen again.
I moved to Northern Ireland nearly 10 years ago, and always thought to go back to the archives to see just how much material had either been shot in the province, or had to do with North/South relations.
I was amazed to find over two hours of archive, that not only revealed a fascinating account of life in Northern Ireland before the Troubles, but that had actually never been seen here before.
When the footage was shot, Amharc Eireann was a regular treat for cinema goers in the Republic. In the days before RTE, it was the only source of local news with moving pictures, and although the weekly turnaround left no time for the inclusion of English subtitles, most people just enjoyed watching these short news items about all aspects of Irish life.
But as the commentary was in Irish, one can only speculate that there was little chance of it getting cinema distribution in Northern Ireland. That was strictly controlled from London, and the newsreel's producers, the Irish language organisation Gael Linn, have nothing in their files that could shed light on this.
So I was looking at all of this amazing material, produced in the Republic and shot north of the border, detailing that unique and little explored period in recent Northern Irish history -- the time between the end of the IRA border campaign and the start of the Troubles. There was a bizarre naivety in the archive commentary, and an unreal sense that the Republic viewed the province, almost as a little brother, with which it shared the island.
There was no official contact between North and South at the time, yet the newsreels showed much interaction between regular people. Not just in sports like road racing and showjumping, or music, such as the showbands, but in many other areas of life, like the visit to the Glen Road Brewery by Dublin barmen, or the arts students who attended each others dances in Dublin and Belfast.
Fascinated by this material, I approached BBC Northern Ireland and TG4 in the Republic, and with support from the Irish Language Broadcast Fund, the series was commissioned.
I began trying to find individuals who were shown in the newsreels, and others who had lived through the time, who could comment on the differences between now and then, and also on how revealing the southern commentary was, hence the title, Amharc Aneas 'View from the South'.
With the help of a researcher, I found nearly 30 people who were actually in the newsreels. From northern road racers like Billy McCosh and Raymond Spence who took part in races in the Republic, to John Wynne, who as a young boy, survived the Belfast to Dublin rail crash of 1964.
Others included the famous Belfast boxer Freddie Gilroy and John O'Donnell from Newry who organised an unemployment march, as well as several players from the Down football team who won two All Ireland gaelic football titles during that time.
But there are many other revealing items, like the coverage of the Stormont elections of 1962, which the commentary refers to as, "the quietest election, this side of the Iron Curtain". Or the Belfast Orange parade of 1963, at which the crew from the Republic filmed an Indian-looking gentleman wearing a sash. The Irish commentary says: "This is the only Black Orangeman we found." Interviews with Orange Order members of the time, as well as Catholic residents of Belfast, reveal the two sides of the story.
There were no protest marches, and the civil rights movement was still many years away.
Lord Brookborough is seen in several of the items, and interviewees give differing opinions on his leadership. Harland and Wolff's shipbuilding is well covered, as is the Balmoral Show, but in this pre-Troubles Northern Ireland many recall a more civic minded society than the one we have today. One Catholic man tells how they looked after their Protestant neighbours' farm when they marched on the Twelfth and how the favour was returned on All Ireland football and hurling finals days.
There is much humour in the series too, with recollections from various contributors, detailing an array of antics not covered in the newsreels, as well as some revealing insights from informed insiders.
Former senior civil servant Dr Maurice Hayes re-tells a story he heard from Terence O'Neill about Lord Brookborough. He would take several months off during the summer to enjoy a long cruise. The quote being: "People thought he was the great statesman relaxing away from the desk. What they didn't know was, there wasn't a desk."
But the sectarian nature of Northern Irish life, didn't completely escape the newsreel. At the Leinster Rifle Club's open day, many Northern Ireland shooters are seen competing, while the commentary points out that while there were only three rifle clubs in the Republic, there were nearly one hundred north of the border.
Whilst it was wrongly thought that these clubs were entirely made up of B-Specials, it is suggested that many Catholics were afraid of the numbers of "licensed firearms", which some put at nearly 10,000.
There is also much time in the series devoted to industrial development and decline, both north and south of the border. The demise of Harland and Wolff and the opening of the Verolme dockyards in Cork; the growth of the Shannon Free Zone and the opening of the new power station in Londonderry. The opening of the M1 motorway to Lisburn as well as the inaugural flight to the International airport at Aldergrove by an Aer Lingus plane from Dublin are also covered.
There is an unbelievable amount of public religious observance in the archives from the Republic, as well as official commemorations for republicans, and there is much discussion in the series about these events, and how they were perceived at the time by both Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. One astonishing revelation is the publication of a Church of Ireland Hymnal in the Irish Language.
Ian Paisley's fury about the Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher meeting the Pope, and President De Valera's visit to the Protestant Trinity College were newsworthy items, but the series ends with the bizarre bombing of Leopardstown race course, by suspected republicans, in an attempt to disrupt an international athletics meeting. The largest Garda presence in the history of the state was assembled to protect the foreign runners, averting a potential international incident.
With the coming of RTE, the newsreels ceased production in the summer of 1964. Nearly 50 years on, they leave us a fascinating account of life in Northern Ireland in the early sixties.
