Category Archive for: ‘Issue 33 – Knocknagow’

Click here to view Knocknagow (1918) In January 1920, an Irish-made film received the following tribute from a leading Dublin newspaper: It is common talk among exhibitors in Ireland that no picture was ever shown in the country that secured anything like the enthusiastic support given to Knocknagow. It is probably the only picture that is given repeats in nearly …

Click here to view Knocknagow (1918) Introduction Ireland occupies a marginal position in world cinema.[1] Indeed, despite the expansion in the Irish film industry during the last twenty years, this is as true of the 2010s as it was of the 1910s. Unlike in most other European countries there has been no language barrier to insulate the country from the …

Click here to view Knocknagow (1918) Film producer James Mark Sullivan (fig. 1) was born in Kerry in 1873 and emigrated with his family to the United States in 1882. This was a time of growing unrest in Ireland. After years of vigorous fundraising in the United States, the Fenian Brotherhood had launched an abortive uprising in Kerry in 1867. …

Click here to view Knocknagow (1918) Introduction In his seminal account of Irish silent cinema, Kevin Rockett locates the Film Company of Ireland’s Knocknagow in relation to the politics of Irish nationalism in the period between the Easter Rising of 1916 and the War of Independence (Rockett, 18–23). Indicating the political logic behind the filmmakers’ choice of elements in their …

Click here to view Knocknagow (1918) During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, authenticity—the “genuine” and the “real”, as it was often termed—was an ongoing concern for Irish-themed entertainment in America. Questions revolved around which entertainment was authentically Irish and which was not. For example, were the stories written or performed by persons from Ireland or of Irish descent? Were …

Click here to view Knocknagow (1918) Knocknagow (1918) has a special significance for followers of sport in Ireland.[1] Most immediately, it contains one of the earliest surviving depictions of hurling on film—and hurling’s earliest depiction in a fiction film—in the scene where Mat “The Thrasher” Donovan leads his team to victory amid cries of “Up Tipperary!” (Clip 1). The hurling …

Click here to view Knocknagow (1918) Global integration was greatly accelerated during the second half of the nineteenth century by the development of new communication techniques. There was a steady progression towards the abolition of spatial and temporal restrictions as it became possible to transport, first, people, then their messages, and, finally, their voices. By the 1920s, communications had extended …