The Forgotten Film That Captured 1920s West Kerry Life – November 13th, 2024

Almost 100 years American ornithologist Benjamin Gault came to Kerry and Cork. His purpose was to document birdlife but the films he shot also captured the way people lived in the 1920s just after the War of Independence and Civil War. His footage was forgotten for decades but his visit lived on in folk memory. Micheál Ó Mainnín decided over a decade to find out what happened to Benjamin Gault’s films after he had heard the tales of an American recording films in West Kerry in the 1920s. Jerry spoke to Micheál and to Dr Aoife Granville from Dingle. Aoife and her sister Deirdre were multi-instrumentalists on the soundtrack to the digitised film of Benjamin Gault’s footage. https://ifiarchiveplayer.ie/benjamin-gault/ This has been made possible by the Chicago Academy of Sciences, San Francisco Silent Film Festival, and the Irish Film Institute as well as by some generous benefactors.