THIS EVENT WILL TAKE PLACE ON TUESDAY 18TH AUGUST

TO STAND IN GOD’S FIRE (In Gottes Feuer Stehen)

Here Wagner marvels at a series of dramatic sites of Irish religious devotion.  On Inis Oírr the sand-sunken remains of the church of St Caomhán are excavated annually by the islanders on the eve of his feast-day. On the remote Skellig Rock, Wagner enjoys unhindered access to the drystone beehive huts, where monks lived lives of unimaginable austerity. On Croagh Patrick, 40,000 pilgrims attempt reach the summit of this “dangerously smooth quartzite pyramid” annually, an endeavour which for German television viewers “remains beyond our comprehension”.

Dir. Margit Wagner. 42 mins, Germany, 1972, Digital.

PATHWAYS TO ART (Reisewege zur Kunst)

One in a series of programmes journeying through international art. In Ireland the staff of the National Library and Museum and leading cultural figures Máire de Paor, Liam Miller, Seán MacRéamoinn and Mary Lavin discuss Irish art and architecture. Professor Liam Ó Briain, a 1916 veteran, attributes the country’s meagre cultural heritage to the centuries of British occupation. Monastic ruins are abandoned, Celtic carvings weather away, but the imposing castles of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy at Powerscourt, Howth and Castletown stand intact.

Dir. Margit Wagner. 42 mins, Germany, 1974, Digital.