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FATHER DELANEY, SILENT WITNESS

Father Delaney, Silent Witness Image Name: Father Delaney, Silent Witness
Father Delaney, Silent Witness Image Name: Father Delaney, Silent Witness
Father Delaney, Silent Witness Image Name: Father Delaney, Silent Witness
Father Delaney, Silent Witness Image Name: Father Delaney, Silent Witness
Father Delaney Silent Witness 7 Image Name: Father Delaney Silent Witness 7
Father Delaney, Silent Witness Image Name: Father Delaney, Silent Witness
Father Delaney, Silent Witness Image Name: Father Delaney, Silent Witness
Father Delaney, Silent Witness Image Name: Father Delaney, Silent Witness
Father Delaney, Silent Witness Image Name: Father Delaney, Silent Witness
Father Delaney, Silent Witness Image Name: Father Delaney, Silent Witness
Father Delaney, Silent Witness Image Name: Father Delaney, Silent Witness

Joe Duffy narrates the story of a Dublin priest and amateur filmmaker, Fr Jack Delaney, who captured all walks of Irish life in the days before television.

When a box of 16mm film rolls was brought into the Irish Film Institute archive in the 1990s by a member of the public, its value wasn’t immediately obvious, but Irene Devitt had a hunch that the self-shot archive collection of her late uncle, Fr Jack Delaney, was significant.  She was right.  Father Delaney, Silent Witness uncovers the stories hidden in this recently restored footage – a unique treasure trove of images of Ireland from a bygone era, many of them previously unseen on television.

The footage is silent, which adds a layer of mystery to the pictures. Who are the people featured in these scenes, shot over four decades? What’s going on? And who is the elusive silent witness, the amateur filmmaker priest, who expertly captures such a rich variety of Irish life but stays behind the camera himself?

The man behind the lens was Fr Jack Delaney, who served in parishes in Dublin’s inner city and suburbs for over 50 years, from 1930 until his death in 1982. His passion and talent for filmmaking enabled him to observe and film the lives of people from all walks of life – from tenement dwellers and schoolkids in the inner city slums of Dublin to middle class families in the suburbs; from the residents and nuns in a Magdalene laundry to communities and family on religious or festive occasions.

Father Delaney, Silent Witness pieces together those back stories, hearing from family members, from people in the footage and from Irish stars with surprising connections to the films, who combine to bring these silent pictures to life:

  • 100 year old Nan White looks for herself in the footage from Fr Jack’s visit to the Rutland Street School in the 1930s
  • broadcaster Pat Kenny sits down with his 101 year old Aunt, Nora Whyte, to watch footage of her father, his grandfather, performing tricks for the camera with an elephant at Dublin Zoo
  • former Magdalene Laundry resident, Gabrielle O’Gorman watches with amazement Fr Delaney’s footage of the laundry girls putting on a theatrical show and playing up for the camera in the 1930s
  • film director Jim Sheridan watches the footage with his playwright brother, Peter, and recognises locations he used for My Left Foot being used to good effect half a century earlier by an amateur filmmaker
  • folk historian Terry Fagan decodes what, at first glance, looks like a pious record of a Corpus Christi procession, revealing that what was really going on was a turf war, with the Catholic Church reclaiming the streets of Dublin’s Monto red light district in the fledgling Irish State
  • Irene Devitt and her siblings describe the uncle they remember so fondly, who hosted home movie nights in his parochial house in the days before Irish television was born, but who is barely glimpsed in his own footage

From ragged children playing in the rubble of demolished tenement houses to sing-songs and larks captured in holiday footage taken in Glengariff, Co. Cork, every mute picture tells a story. Father Delaney, Silent Witness offers unique insights into scenes captured at a time when moving images of everyday life were a rarity in Ireland. 

Father Delaney, Silent Witness airs on Thursday, 24th October at 10.15pm on RTÉ One.