Amharc Aneas - View From The South

Archive series providing a fascinating account of life in pre-Troubles Northern Ireland

An Irish Language Broadcast Fund archive series, Amharc Aneas (View From The South) provides a fascinating account of life in Northern Ireland before the Troubles began. The series uses footage from the Gael Linn cinema newsreel Amharc Éireann, which ran from 1959 to 1964.

“It’s a remarkable and little explored period of recent Northern Irish history”, explains producer/director Joe Marcus. “There are over two hours of newsreels from Northern Ireland, covering sport, religion, industrial progress, politics and much more. We found nearly thirty people who had direct experience of events covered in the newsreels almost fifty years ago, including Dubliner John Wynne, who survived the Belfast to Dublin train crash in 1964, John O’Donnell, who organised the unemployment march in Newry in 1963, Belfast man Raymond Spence, who won the Skerries 100 in 1962, and Jim Heyburn, who sang at Finaghy Field on the 12th of July in 1961.”

The series features excellent analysis of the newsreels from former Northern Correspondent for RTÉ, Póilín Ní Chiaráin; Reverend Gary Hastings, a Belfast-born Church of Ireland Minister; former lecturers in Irish Risteard Mac Gabhann and Diarmaid Ó Doibhlin, and Dr Maurice Hayes, former senior civil servant and Irish Senator.