BFI

The Topical Budget newsreel was thorough in its treatment of Ireland in the eventful 1910s and 20s, and Irish subjects account for something like a fifth of its output. The newsreel followed closely events during the War and the moves towards independence of the new Irish Free State. This short item shows British troops boarding a ship and leaving Ireland, although it does not specify where from. A further shot shows Irishmen taking up the guard duties formerly carried out by British troops. They are not in uniform, but carry rifles and are shown going through a perfunctory and evidently unfamiliar drill. No comments are offered in the intertitles; the newsreel merely records, rather than explains the events.

The editors of Topical Budget could not have known that as the film was being taken relations between the significant players in Southern Irish politics were deteriorating, and that the apparently smooth transition of power from the British Government to the Irish Parliament presented in this film was threatened by the compromises inherent in the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which was ratified in January 1922.

Bryony Dixon

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