Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! Celebrate with a movie from the library’s collection. Choose from films to make the leprechaun in you feel a bit mischievous or to celebrate Irish heritage and history.
Begin with some older films including Odd Man Out (1947) in which James Mason stars as a wounded IRA gunman on the run in Belfast. The Quiet Man (1952) features John Wayne as an American boxer who returns to Ireland to forget his past only to fall in love with the beautiful Maureen O’Hara. Trouble ensues over the payment of a dowry. Angela’s Ashes (1999) is set in pre-war Limerick and is based on Frank McCourt’s memoir of his humble childhood. The movie is imbued with the same heartbreaking scenes and soulful humor as the book.
Look to the rainbow and find the child in you as you smile along with Finian’s Rainbow staring Fred Astaire in his last musical. And yes, that is Petula Clark singing along with Fred. Your family will enjoy following the adventures of a leprechaun as he tires to retrieve a crock of gold from an old wanderer who has taken it to America.
Other notable films include Dancing at Lughnasa staring Meryl Streep, In the Name of the Father and My Left Foot about Irish poet Christy Brown, both staring Academy Award winner Daniel Day Lewis. More recent Irish cinema films in our collection include Once and The Wind that Shakes the Barley.
Whether or not you are indeed Irish, enjoy one of these films.