From the Vaults is our monthly screening from the IFI Irish Film Archive.

Another gem from the Irish film canon, this warm-hearted comedy, set in Belfast during the week of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953, is about a plucky family barely making ends meet, as their alcoholic father, Mike McNeil (John Gregson), struggles to keep his job at the shipyards. Mischievous daughter, Jacqueline (Jacqueline Ryan), makes up outlandish stories about her dad’s life to impress her schoolmates but promises God that she will stop if her prayers are answered. Child actress, Jacqueline Ryan, holds her own among Abbey veterans Kathleen Ryan, Noel Purcell, Maureen Delaney and Cyril Cusack. (Notes by Sunniva O’Flynn.)