Film Footage of Life on the Dingle Peninsula (1949 ): Castlegregory, Camp and Cloghane

Film Footage of Life on the Dingle Peninsula (1949 ): Castlegregory, Camp and Cloghane

18.00

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George Daly emigrated to New York from his native Castlegregory, Co. Kerry in the late 1920s and, armed with an 8mm cine camera, he paid his first visit home to the Dingle Peninsula in the summer of 1949. He spent those sunny days filming in Castlegregory village and its environs, and also in the villages of Camp and Cloghane. Featured on the film are the local people as they emerge from the church after Sunday mass and congregate in Castlegregory village, some of the women wearing the traditional black shawls. Water is drawn from the pump in the village, and children in the schoolroom laugh in excitement at being filmed for the first time. Work on the farm, the horses and carts, the mowing of hay and the old black Ford cars are all featured in this fascinating document on social history. In early 2017, Kerry Co. Council sponsored Tralee based oral historians Maurice and Jane O’Keeffe of Irish Life and Lore to compile an oral history collection with people who remembered and who worked on the Tralee & Dingle Narrow Gauge Railway. The line operated from 1891 until its closure in 1953. One of the people recorded for the oral history project was Tom Daly, nephew of George Daly. He remembers travelling with his mother on the line from Castlegregory to Tralee in his childhood days. He very kindly granted permission to Irish Life and Lore to edit and improve the quality of the old film, and to record a voiceover with him in which he identifies many of the people featured on the film. The original film had previously been viewed only by the Daly family. The footage runs to 24 mins.

This footage was discovered in 2017. The DVD is available to purchase here for €18