Please note that this film contains some outdated terminology and cultural depictions that may be considered offensive. There is also some film damage at 27 minutes that causes a strobing effect that may effect viewers with photosensitivity.
Richard Hayward stars in this "quota quickie" from 1936 directed by Donovan Pedelty. "Quota quickies" were films made on the cheap for a quick financial return. They were an unintended side effect from the UK Parliament's Cinematograph Films Act 1927. These films were often poor quality and plagued by clichéd writing. But scoff at them at your peril as they later proved to be of cultural value, recording aspects of the popular culture of the day. Hayward was an early champion of Irish cinema, and this film - as fusty and festooned with "paddywhackery" as it is – beamed extensive footage shot in Ulster onto the cinema screens of the 1930s.
Hayward stars as Donagh O'Connor, an Irishman living in London. O’Connor is an entrepreneur and the owner of a "concentrated food pill" company. The businessman longs to return to his boyhood home of Ballyvoraine. A keen singer and performer, O'Connor waxes lyrical on his homeland any chance he gets. At one business dinner, O'Connor treats the guests to an Irish song. Three drunken Irish aviators hear that O'Connor would give "half his fortune" to return to his hometown. Shenanigans are set afoot. They conspire to kidnap O'Connor and fly him to Ireland. Sobering up, they dump him in a bogland on the outskirts of his homeplace and fly out of the picture. Fortune favours O’Connor as he meets the fiery Moira Flaherty, played by Dinah Sheridan of The Railway Children fame, in her film debut. Flaherty takes the uprooted Irishman into her home, shared with her feckless poitín-guzzling father, and her heart. O'Connor finds his hometown has been seized by Chicago gangster, Big Mike Finnegan, and his Italian henchman, Benito Columbo. A battle of brain and brawn ensues as O'Connor's London secretary and newly-acquainted Irish American friend race to Ireland to rescue him. O’Connor has to put the town to rights, rekindle Moira’s ailing relationship with her suitor, and see off Big Mike Finnegan. Creaky sets and even creakier accents combine to offer a well-meant, though ill-informed, love letter to Ireland. It's worth it alone for O'Connor's last act showdown with Columbo. Italian arias and Irish ballads go head-to-head in a battle of cultural dominance. Witness it all in Irish and Proud of It.