"Glenties Tidy Towns – Radharc" is now available to stream for free on the Irish Film Institute's IFI Archive Player.
The Tidy Towns competition established in Ireland in 1958 has proven to be a great initiative, bringing communities together and encouraging residents to look after their town and keep their locality tidy.
Glenties in County Donegal is no stranger to the competition and has taken the crown for tidiest town in Ireland for three years in row. This short film from 1962 shows what it takes to win and what sets Glenties residents apart from other towns in Ireland.
"Glenties Tidy Towns" is a part of the Irish Film Institute's Radharc Collection
The Irish Film Institute's Radharc Collection
Founded in 1959, Radharc is considered one of Ireland’s most important independent documentary production companies. It initially comprised of a small group of Dublin priests led by Father Peter Dunn and Fr Desmond Forristal. The team made over 400 documentaries which were screened on RTÉ, Ireland’s national broadcaster, between 1961 and 1996. Their insightful and challenging filmmaking garnered many critical accolades.
The Radharc documentary series had a remarkably broad reach both geographically and thematically. It was shot in more than 60 countries around the world and looked at life from a range of religious, social, and cultural perspectives. The team was not afraid to tackle difficult and often controversial topics and their standing as clergy allowed a level of access that lay filmmakers may not have been able to achieve.
The Radharc output is significant, in both Irish and international terms, as a body of finely crafted documentary work and an insightful record of Irish cultural, social, and ideological engagement from the 1960s to 90s.
The Radharc cameras shone a light onto a changing Ireland and recorded values, rural and urban traditions, and indeed topography that no longer exist. Their international output was equally valuable as the team covered five continents in search of globally significant subject matter.
The Radharc Trust is responsible for The Radharc Collection and deposited it with the IFI in 1998.
"Glenties Tidy Towns" is published here with kind permission of The Radharc Trust and thanks to the Irish Film Institute (IFI), who IrishCentral has partnered up with throughout 2023 to bring you a taste of what their remarkable collection entails. You can find all IrishCentral articles and videos from the IFI here.
To watch more historic Irish footage, visit the IFI Archive Player, the Irish Film Institute’s virtual viewing room that provides audiences around the globe free, instant access to Irish heritage preserved in the IFI Irish Film Archive. Irish Culture from the last century is reflected through documentaries, animation, adverts, amateur footage, feature films, and much more. You can also download the IFI Archive Player App for free on iPhone, Android, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Roku.
IrishCentral has partnered up with the IFI throughout 2023 to bring you a taste of what their remarkable collections entail. You can find all IrishCentral articles and videos from the IFI here.
