Join us for FREE daily screenings of films from the IFI Irish Film Archive. Simply collect your free ticket at the IFI Box Office.

This month a two-part programme will be presented on alternating days.

IRELAND: The Tear and The Smile Parts 1 & 2

FILM INFO: CBS, 1961, 2 x 26 mins, Black and White

Walter Cronkite introduces U.S. television viewers to the cultural, historical and political life of Ireland in this two-part programme written by Irish novelist Elizabeth Bowen and filmed by Robert Monks. Featuring contributions from President Eamon de Valera, Taoiseach Sean Lemass, Sean O Faolain, Siobhan McKenna, Brendan Behan, Nora Connolly O’Brien, and Sybil Connolly, the films include striking scenes of urban and rural life, Dublin pubs, Trinity student debates and hardship in the west of Ireland.

Upon broadcast, the programmes offended Irish diplomats in the U.S., who argued that they presented Ireland as ‘a poverty-stricken country riddled with backwardness, unemployment and emigration’.

Not to be missed.