Ar son an nisiin: Film, Culture and Nation-Building in Twentieth-Century Ireland, Keynote Address to International Conference on Literature, Culture and Nation-Building in Twentieth-Century Ireland, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing, China.

This paper examines the role that film has played in Ireland in the process of nation building before, and in the decades following, Irish independence. It explores the close connection between Irish film and the rising tide of nationalism in the second decade of the twentieth century and films ongoing role in affirming the Irish nation after independence and particularly in the aftermath of the Second World War. In this analysis, consideration will be given to films engagement with distinctive aspects of Irish culture, including literature, language, and sport as part of a process of nation-building in the twentieth century. Films considered will include Knocknagow (1918), Irish Destiny (1926), The Dawn (1936) and A Nation Once Again (1946). The presentation will conclude with a case study of productions by the National Film Institute of Ireland (founded in 1945) focusing on indigenous Irish sport and their role in nation-building in the post-war era. The Institutes films of All-Ireland finals in both hurling and Gaelic football (the major indigenous sports in Ireland), productions centrally concerned with representing and promoting the nation through sport, constitute distinctly Irish films that played an important role in affirming the Irish nation in a particularly challenging decade, the 1950s.