There's Always the Mailboat

“The past here in Ireland is impervious as a stone. And who knows what age a stone can reach? But the romantic veil draped around this country is wearing thin.” In the late 1960s, Hans Keller provided an expositional commentary for his documentary on Ireland using pertinent, sometimes even poetic formulations. In this black-and-white film, footage (often shot from in a car) ranging from Irish churches and factories to tourists in horses and buggies and empty landscapes dotted with empty houses is interspersed with interviews on the major causes and consequences of the melancholy state of the country at the time. A country that has been independent since 1916, but one that still – in Keller’s words – “is aiming for a kind of freedom that does not yet seem to have been won.” The economy, dominated by foreign companies; the conservative family politics; the crisis within Irish television; IRA activity – many themes are covered in this cinematic reportage, richly accompanied by familiar classical, popular and Irish nationalist music. While English director David Lean found the ideal backdrop for his historical melodrama in Ireland, countless Irish were leaving their gloomy homeland, too restless to wait for better times. In Keller’s words, “Saying farewell is a daily ritual here. There’s always the mailboat.”