An Irishman's Diary

A controversial film about an IRA "hero" which was banned by the censorship board in Britain is to be screened in Dublin next week. It tells the story of one Denis O'Hara, a middle-class "only son" who breaks his mother's heart by volunteering for active service.

There are graphic depictions of "occupying" British soldiers being attacked and shot dead, a spectacular mass jail-break by republican internees and scenes of jubilant villagers celebrating the success of the "armed struggle". The film also features a parish priest openly condoning the violence and assuring grief-stricken parents that their son's valour is "God's will" and will bring "peace and happiness to Ireland". A racy sub-plot involves O'Hara's sweetheart, primary school teacher Moira Barry, being abducted and threatened with rape by a sinister gang of poteen distillers led by an "informer" and his malevolent dwarf sidekick.

Sounds like strong meat, doesn't it? But relax - there's no need to dash off an outraged letter to the editor. Irish Destiny was made way back in 1926, 60 years before Michael Collins stormed Hollywood. It was the first film made in the new State to provide a fictional account of the War of Independence and was produced by a Dublin Jewish GP, Isaac "Jack" Eppel. At great personal expense, he assembled a motley crew of professional actors and amateurs - including family member Simon Eppel in the enviable role of "a cigar smoker at Vaughan's Hotel" - and most of the filming took place in Wicklow and Dublin. The 73-minute black and-and-white film contains some highly innovative colour-tinted sequences and incorporates actual newsreel footage of the burning of Cork and the destruction of the Custom House in Dublin.

The world première took place at the Corinthian Cinema in Dublin on Easter Saturday, 1926. It was favourably reviewed and became a brief box-office hit. But Dr Eppel needed international distribution to try to recoup his investment. In Britain, Irish Destiny achieved the dubious distinction of being one of only five films banned in 1926 (another was Battleship Potemkin) and a savagely cut version released under the title An Irish Mother flopped. In America, the film received a snooty review in the New York Times (then, as now, a newspaper with a fearsome reputation for filleting movies) on March 29th, 1927, under the headline "Dublin Fighting".

A critic noted that the film "was presented at Daly's Theatre last evening to an audience composed largely of persons of Irish birth or extraction" and described the acting and direction as "very amateurish" and the photography as "deficient". But the audience didn't give a hoot: "The scenes of Irish Destiny elicited constant waves of applause. The spectators manifested their enthusiasm when the Black and Tans fell, and they hissed, as in the days of old melodrama, when a Black and Tan bullet struck an Irish Volunteer".

But the film did not make money. The project drove Dr Eppel to the brink of financial ruin and he emigrated to England, resumed practice as a GP, never made another film and died in Kingston-upon-Thames in 1942. By then, Irish Destiny was already long forgotten.

Almost half-a-century on, a poignant letter appeared in The Irish Times on October 1st 1984 from a reader in Leeson Park, Dublin. Evelyn Grace - who, as 17-year old Evelyn Henchey, had played the female support - reminisced about the making of Irish Destiny and wondered, "Does anyone else remember?" The letter stirred some memories, but all copies of the film were believed to be lost. And that was almost the end of the matter - until, a few years later, by truly serendipitous coincidence, two original colour posters advertising the film were found under linoleum during a house renovation in Ringsend, Dublin.

The Irish Film Archive triggered a painstaking worldwide search of film archives on the remote chance that a copy might have survived somewhere. An Irish-American, Patrick Sheehan, who worked in the Library of Congress in Washington DC, made a remarkable discovery: a copy of the film, lodged there for copyright purposes, had lain untouched and unnoticed for decades. The 35mm film was in a perilously fragile state and the US authorities agreed to a new copy being made at a specialist laboratory in California.

Back in Ireland, composer Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin was commissioned to write a score for the film - which in the "silent" days had been accompanied by cinema pianists to the strains of Danny Boy and Mother Machree. A gala screening was held at the National Concert Hall in December 1993 attended by President Robinson. Sadly, Lady Evelyn Grace did not live to see the film being shown for the first time in Dublin in almost 70 years: she had died in March that year.

Now Irish Destiny is being made available for viewing in homes and schools with the launch by the Irish Film Institute and RTÉ of a high-definition DVD version, made by Lotus Films in association with The Bright Room and Windmill Lane Pictures.

The National Concert Hall is once again the venue for a special screening next Thursday, the eve of St Patrick's Day. The score will again performed by Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, together with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra conducted by Prionnsías Ó Duinn. The DVD will go on sale in shops throughout the country this month. It is an intriguing aide-memoire for a society reflecting on the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising.