RTÉ Radio 1’s Pat Kenny Show will Monday paid tribute to the ground-breaking Radharc Films to mark the 50th anniversary of the screening of the first Radharc documentary on January 12 1962.The radio interview is one of a number of events taking place this year as a tribute to the documentary programme series’ priceless record of life in the second half of the 20th century.
The anniversary commemoration will also see two of the documentary series’ ground-breaking films shown during the course of the International Eucharistic Congress celebration next June.
Televised on RTÉ from 1962 to 1996, the documentaries covered a range of provocative social, political and religious issues, in a searching, and sometimes humorous, but always informative format.
Over nearly four decades, the Radharc team sought to give people in Ireland an insight into the wider world wherever issues of social injustice, dictators, famine or civil unrest were occurring.
Other Radharc films dealt with Irish history and ancient culture such as the documentaries that were made on the history of the Celtic Church and the missionary endeavours of Saints Columba, Kilian and Brendan the Navigator.
Radharc Films ceased production in 1996 following the death of founder-director Fr Joseph Dunn.
The Radharc legacy, which is overseen by Peter Dunn, a brother of Fr Joe Dunn, has over 400 documentaries spanning 30 years’ work in 75 countries.
The name Radharc means a view or a vision and the programme logo comes from one of the panels on the High Cross at Moone, Co Kildare.
The Radharc man symbolises the programme: a wide-eyed, slightly bemused character looking out on the changing religious and social scene in Ireland and around the world.
Over the month of January, the Irish Film Institute has reserved its lunchtime archive programme for the screening of five of Radharc’s films. The five films are:
- The Sodality (1962)
- The Village with the Most Vocations (1962)
- Manners in Church (1962)
- Christy Brown (1962)
- The Young Offender: St Patrick’s Institution (1963)
- Politics as a Career (1965)
Radharc had its origins in the late 1950s ahead of the launch of Irish television.
A group of Dublin priests produced some experimental 10-minute documentary films for a magazine programme about Irish religious and social life and these proved to be popular.
They were then developed these into half-hour programmes filmed in locations all around the country.
Very soon, the Radharc documentaries became, in the words of a former RTÉ Director General, “part of the fabric of Irish broadcasting in a way that is unusual for a religious programme.”
The substantial archive of over 400 films is currently deposited with the Irish Film Archive and RTÉ.
Ongoing preservation work and academic study on the archive is being currently undertaken.
Speaking to ciNews, Peter Dunn outlined some of the forthcoming events to mark the anniversary.
These include:
- Radio Interviews given by PhD student, Matthew McAteer, who is completing his final year of a joint Radharc/UCD PhD scholarship on the subject of Historicising the Radharc Archive to highlight the documentary series’ significance in the context of the religious and social history of Ireland in the period 1960-2000.
- Media interviews in addition to today’s Pat Kenny Show on RTÉ Radio 1 include Newstalk’s History series on Sunday January 22 and an interview with Myles Dungan on the History Show on RTÉ Radio 1 on Sunday January 29.
- A showing of Radharc documentaries on January 26 at the South Kilkenny Historical Society in Mullinavat, Co Kilkenny at 8:00pm. The two films are Honesty at the Fair (1963) and Eggs in the Hay (1969).
- Screening of Radharc Films all day at the two-day Church Resources Exhibition in the Ramada Hotel Belfast on the February 16 and 17.
- Presentation of the Radharc Award at Fresh, which is a Radharc trophy for the best documentary film, made by 8 to 18 year old students and screened at the Fresh Film Festival which is held in Limerick annually. This year it will held from March 26-30 at The Bell Table Centre on O’Connell Street, Limerick. (www.freshfilmfestival.net)
- A screening of Radharc films in the RDS during the week of the Eucharistic Congress over two days from June 10 to 17. The two films to be screened will be Kitty’s Folly, which examined the history of the founding of the Sisters of Mercy by Catherine McAuley, and the film The Year of the Congress 1932.
The Radharc Award for Professional Documentary Film-makers whose films have been screened on Irish television and for amateurs’ short documentaries (maximum 15 minutes) not necessarily screened on television, will be held in October at the Alexander Hotel, Merrion Square in Dublin.
The annual Mass for all the members of the Radharc film team, living and deceased, will be held in Milltown Parish Church in Dublin and will be followed by a reception and a showing of
a Radharc film.
More information http://www.radharcfilms.com/