My ancestors - O'Mara - Contents

Films of James Mark Sullivan, 1916-20

Films produced by James Mark Sullivan and the Film Company of Ireland, 1916-20.
All silent movies.

See Film Company of Ireland filmography in [Screening The Past, 2012].

1916

1. O'Neill of the Glen (also here and here), 1916. "Released July 1916". Listed as FCI's first film, screened at the Bohemian Theatre in Dublin, 7th Aug 1916. See account: "a cameraman from the Film Company of Ireland photographed audience members as they walked into the theater. The footage was then screened as an addition to the film at subsequent screenings"

2. Puck Fair Romance (also here and here), 1916.
3. Woman's Wit (also here and here), 1916 (or 1917).
4. The Miser's Gift (also here and here), 1916 (or 1917).
5. Food of Love (also here), 1916.
6. The Eleventh Hour (also here), 1916.
7. The Girl From the Golden Vale, 1916.

8. Irish Jarvey Tales, 1916.
9. Shanachies Tales, 1916.
10. Treasure Trove, 1916.
11. Fun at a Finglas Fair, 1916.
12. A Girl of Glenbeigh (also here), 1916 (NOT 1917 or 1918).

1917

1. The Widow Malone (also here and here), made in 1916 (NOT 1917). Released January 15, 1917.
2. An Unfair Love Affair (also here), made in 1916 (NOT 1917). Released January 22, 1917.

3. A Passing Shower, 1917.
4. Serial of Twenty Irish Scenics (1917).
5. Cleansing Fires, 1917.
6. A Man's Redemption, 1917.
7. When Love Came to Gavin Burke (also here), filmed 1917 (definitely), released 1917 or 1918.
8. Rafferty's Rise (also here), 1917 (NOT 1918). Jim Sullivan produced it.

9. Blarney (also here), 1917.
10. The Byeways of Fate (also here), 1917.
11. The Irish Girl (also here), 1917.
12. The Upstart (also here), 1917.

1918-20

1. Knocknagow (1918).

2. The Republican Loan film (1919).

3. Willy Reilly and his Colleen Bawn (1920).

4. Paying the Rent (also here), 1919 (or 1920).
5. In the Days of Saint Patrick, 1920, was produced by the "General Film Company of Ireland".

List of films of the Film Company of Ireland.
In Irish Limelight, Dec 1917.
From here in [Screening The Past, 2012].

Ad for Serial of Twenty Irish Scenics from the Film Company of Ireland.
In Irish Limelight, Aug 1917.
From here in [Screening The Past, 2012].

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References

• Brian McIlroy, Irish Cinema: An Illustrated History, 1988.
• Censoring Irish Nationalism: The British, Irish and American Suppression of Republican Images in Film and Television, 1909-1995 by Louisa Burns-Biscogno, 1997.
• Stills, Reels and Rushes: Ireland and the Irish in Twentieth Century Cinema by Michael Gray, 2000.
• Irish National Cinema, Ruth Barton, 2004, pp. 23-31.

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Sources yet to be consulted

• Agreement dated 30 March 1917. James M. Sullivan and Mary Rynne.

• Wharton Releasing Corporation records, c.1916-23, Collection Number: 3924, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.
  • "Knock-Na-Gow" or "The Homes of Tipperary", Box 1, Folder 46
  • "Willy Reilly and His Colleen Bawn", Box 1, Folder 49-51

• "Came the Dawn", program on Irish cinema, Radio Eireann, Wed 5 May 1965.
  • See letter from Michael Rynne, 6 May 1965, p.1 and p.2. From P133/4/21.

• "Film Production in Ireland in the Early Days", John MacDonagh's reminiscences, in Cinema Ireland 1895-1976 [pamphlet] (Dublin: Dublin Arts Festival 1976).
• Taylor Downing, "The film company of Ireland", Sight & Sound, 49.1 (1980): 42-45.
• Anthony Slide, The Cinema and Ireland, 1988, pp.11-14.
• Cinema and Ireland, Kevin Rockett, 1988, pp.16-32. See 2014 edn. Film Company of Ireland starts at part 28.

• Tony Iles, "Irish film making - the forgotten years", Cinema Technology, 12 n4 (1999): 32-36.
• Section: "The Film Company of Ireland, 1916-20", p.676, A New History of Ireland, VII: Ireland 1921-84, ed. J.R. Hill, Oxford, 2004.
• The Story of Irish Film by Arthur Flynn, 2004.

• Maryanne Felter
  • "James Mark Sullivan and the Film Company of Ireland" (formerly here), Maryanne Felter and Daniel Schultz, New Hibernia Review, Volume 8, Number 2, Summer 2004, pp. 24-40. See also Editors' Notes in same issue.
  • "Selling Memories, Strengthening Nationalism: The Marketing of Film Company of Ireland's Silent Films in America", Maryanne Felter and Daniel Schultz, The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Fall, 2006), pp. 10-20.

• Denis Condon
  • Early Irish Cinema, 1895-1921, 2008. See pp. 236-243.
  • Early Irish Cinema site.
  • Images from Rafferty's Rise

• "Ellen O'Mara Sullivan and the Film Company of Ireland", talk by Diog O'Connell, at symposium, 'Irish cinema: the national and the international', Trinity College Dublin, 20 May 2016.
• The Limerickwoman who was one of Ireland's film pioneers. Veronica Johnson, 2 March 2021.

• Ellen O'Mara Sullivan at the Women Film Pioneers Project.

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The film "Knocknagow" (1918)

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The Republican Loan film (1919)

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The film "Willy Reilly and his Colleen Bawn" (1920)

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"Whatever the limitations of the two major fiction film production companies, Kalem and the Film Company of Ireland, working in Ireland during 1910-20, they did produce the first positive fictional images of Ireland on film."
- From part 41 of [Rockett, 2014 edn].

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• IMDB
  • Film Company of Ireland
  • James Mark Sullivan

• Irish Film and Television Network
  • filmography of Irish films

• IFI - Irish Film Institute, Eustace St, Dublin.
  • Formerly the Irish Film Centre.
  • IFI Library
  • IFA - Irish Film Archive

• NOT by the Film Company of Ireland:
  • You Remember Ellen, 1912.
  • Land of Her Fathers, 1924.