Can you help? Do you recognise anyone from this 100-year-old Irish video footage?

Virgin Radio

15 Dec 2021, 14:44

Step into a real-life time machine. Vintage footage shot in Ireland in the 1920s has been restored - but can you identify anyone? Shot by American ornithologist Benjamin Gault, it was recently unearthed in Chicago and has given a rare look into daily life in Ireland.

Otherwise known as “Kaerty", he visited Dingle, County Kerry and carried a camera enabling him to capture precious footage of Ireland who had just recovered from its own civil war.

Most of the footage that does exist from that time is of major events - not everyday life - according to Manus McManus, film collections and acquisitions manager for the Irish Film Institute.

Kevin Rockett, a retired professor of film studies at Trinity College Dublin, said of its rarity: “There’s lots of footage of the war, so that was what people would be most familiar with."

“Because the footage was shot by an American in Ireland, it’s fitting that, after nearly 100 years, the US-Ireland connection endures,” McManus said.

Rob Byrne, President of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, who lives in Ireland, said: “First of all, these are amateur films shot 100 years ago that, fortunately, nobody ever threw out.

“Films like these are disappearing. They’re a huge, single unique copy on a combustible, flammable, deteriorating film base. Fifty years from now this film would not exist at all.”

Kathy O'Regan, the festival's senior film restorer, said: “It was magical to see it. On a personal level, the first time I watched it was so exciting.

"There’s this one shot of two farmers who are planting potatoes, and I swear to God, one of the men is the absolute spitting image of one of my next-door neighbours. I know it’s impossible, but it’s wild just to watch.”

Ó Mainnín added: “I know all those people that were in the film, but they were older,” he says. “But that’s when they were young and strong and full of life, you know?”

Do you recognise any of these lovely faces?