the Irish Question

Series

Series Name

The March of Time 9th Year

Issue

Issue No.

11

Date Released

12 Jun 1944

Length of issue (in feet)

1706

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1the Irish Question

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 1

Summary

The March of Time synopsis: The proud and sensitive people of Ireland are seldom out of the news, comments the March of Time, and begins amusingly with an example of the kind of tea-cup tempest which is ever bursting about the Irish, and which makes them the most difficult people in the world to ignore. In this case we are shown the reactions, in different Irish homes, to the announcements of the late Mrs. G. B. Shaw’s bequest of £100,000 to teach the Irish self-control.

But the film soon passes from a comic to a lyric note when, accompanying scenes of rural beauty, an Irish voice begins to speak of Ireland as only an Irishman and a poet could speak. Ireland’s cause is urged with fine eloquence and vigour, the quality and accent of the speaker lending his words an authority greater than could appear in a report of them. The Voice tells of Ireland’s passionate regard for the independence she has so lately won after centuries of oppression and want. Not that freedom has brought prosperity to Ireland: this was not expected. "We have lived too long and too intimately with poverty to be rid of it in a few short years" says Ireland’s champion. The Irish have fought again and again for freedom; for freedom to live in their own way, though that way means "toiling and working from the rising of the sun to its setting" to scrape a spare living from the soil that bore them. The Voice proudly and justly boasts the fame of Irish literature: the poets who have sung "to sweeten Ireland’s wrong"; the men of letters knwon the world over. Of the ordinary Irishman we understand that when he is not working he is reciting poetry, talking politics or cheering a race horse. And working or playing, he is a Catholic all the time.

Today, Ireland’s people, who have known so much tragedy and bloodshed, are at peace. After too many years of bitter fighting for its own causes and principles she is in no mood for worrying about the rest of the world. No Irishman will feel that his people are truly free until Northern Ireland is restored to Eire, and the determination to remain neutral is strengthened by this resentment of partition. For Ireland, independence and neutrality have become an indivisible cause, and she is ready to fight only for that. It was, therefore, to be expected that the U.S. State Department’s representation to Eire, demanding the dismissal of Axis diplomats from Irish soil, should be met with a prompt and emphatic refusal. Eire gave a categorical denial to the charges contained in the U.S. Note, an event which is dramatised in this film. Eire is not conscious of any unfairness in her attitude towards the Allies. She feels that her strictly guarded neutrality has worked more to the advantage of the United Natons than to the Axis. She permitted over 100,000 of her men to go to Britain when the British Government sought recruits to ease its critical labour shortage. In the British armed forces are 200,000 Irish volunteers. Eire, indeed, is willing to do what she can within her status as a neutral to aid the Allies but she considers herself irrevocably committed to neutrality as a national policy.

Researcher Comments

Len Lye collaborated on this story, according to the BFI. This story was included in Vol.10 No.9 of the US edition.

Keywords

Foreign relations; Diplomacy; War and conflict

Written sources

British Film Institute Sources
The March of Time Promotional Material   Lobby Card, Used for synopsis

Credits:

Production Co.

Time Inc.