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Ennis

Category:
The Irish Independence Film Collection - The Early Irish Free State
Directed by:
British Pathé
Produced by:
British Pathé
Year:

1949
Duration:

2 mins 30 sec
Language:
English

A study of the sleepy village of Ennis, Co. Clare, in the 1940s and how Shannon Airport affected daily life in the locality.

While Pathé’s lens focuses on primitive thatched cottages, a narrator describes how Ennis ‘clings to the old ways of life’. A young boy fills a bucket from a street pump and the voiceover tells how ‘water for a wash or a drink still means a long walk for someone’. Shannon Airport is only sixteen miles away and the locals have noticed a change. Cars, once a rare sight in the village, now ‘disturb the peace and quiet’ and hold up traffic on narrow country lanes. 23-year-old hotelier Josette O’Regan, however, anticipated the rise of footfall and marketed The Old Ground Hotel to tourists and airlines.

This film is part of The Irish Independence Film Collection – The Early Irish Free State that explores facets of Irish society after the War of Independence and up to the birth of the Irish Republic.

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