1969 Ireland

About this footage

Rural roads and farm animals take up much of this 1969 Ireland footage. Horse and donkey carts move along narrow lanes, one stacked with metal milk cans, and the camera stops often for dry-stone walls, ewes grazing beside their lambs, and whitewashed cottages with thatched roofs and painted window frames.

Road signs place several stops. A bilingual sign reads "Cill Áirne / Killarney," a man in a suit poses beside another for Donegal, and a hand-lettered sign at a rock face says "Kissing the Blarney Stone." Between towns the film turns to ivy-covered castle ruins, white lighthouses, and harbors with docked passenger ships, some of it shot from a moving boat. In the city clips, a statue on a tall monument rises over a busy square, double-decker buses pass, and rain falls on crowded streets. A marching band in red and black uniforms parades, and people feed Canada geese and pigeons through park railings.

Much of the color has shifted toward purple. The reels fit projects on Irish farm life, sea travel, or Irish streets in 1969.