Irish Film Institute -Rediscovering Margit Wagner

Rediscovering Margit Wagner

Margit Wagner first visited Ireland in 1953, the same year she broadcast her first radio feature on the country and a year before the first visit of Heinrich Böll, author of Irisches Tagebuch (Irish Journal, 1957) and screenwriter of Irland und seine Kinder (Children of Éire). Böll’s work is widely recognised, but though Wagner made more than ten film and radio programmes on Ireland, her contribution, until now, has largely been overlooked.

Wagner played a remarkable role in shaping German perceptions of Ireland. Her films, produced between the late 1950s and the 1970s, were highly acclaimed. One Irish reviewer praised her for “filming wonderful things to which we are blind”, while another observed that her love for Ireland inspired “hundreds, thousands, perhaps even millions” of Germans to share her admiration. In recognition of her work, the National University of Ireland awarded her an honorary doctorate in 1980.

For many years Wagner’s films were largely inaccessible in Ireland. It is time to rediscover this pioneering filmmaker and reassess her lasting contribution to Irish-German cultural relations.

A shortened form of Rediscovering Margit Wagner will be presented at the Belltable Arts Centre on November 4th in collaboration with the University of Limerick Centre for Irish-German Studies, marking the official pairing of Limerick with Germany for the Irish EU Presidency 2026.

Introductory note by Prof Gisela Holfter

Individual film notes by Sunniva O’Flynn

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