The Heritage of Ireland is a filmed six by one-hour series on Ireland’s cultural and artistic history, largely funded by commercial and semi-state patrons who gave Louis Marcus repayable loans. The balance of the approximately £80,000 budget came from the Arts Council, and RTE paid a broadcast fee in advance. An ad for the National Dairy Council (one of only two he made) allowed Marcus to survive for the long period of production in 1976. This third episode looks at Ireland’s religious heritage. The series was intended, as Louis Marcus puts it, as ‘an assault on the international coffee-table culture market’, with one eye on a sale to the public broadcasting network in the US.
(1978, 6x1hr)