Gaol For a Kiss

This newsreel features a laughing Julia Clarke who fled Ireland after being sentenced to one month in gaol for kissing her boyfriend.

Julia Clarke, from Glasgow, was sentenced by Dundalk Court for kissing her boyfriend on church property at Blackrock, Co. Louth. According to a news article at the time, ‘the local vigilance committee was shocked and the Dundalk Justices were so scandalised that, although Miss Clarke already had returned home to Glasgow, they passed the sentence “with a view to keeping her out of the country for ever”. Her unnamed boyfriend had already appeared before the Court and was ordered to pay a small fine.

Ms. Clarke was the first woman sentenced under Eamon de Valera’s ‘Vice Act’. In this newsreel, she doesn’t appear too worried about the sentence.

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.