RTÉ Documentaries

Some decades ago, a couple of feature films were produced about Ireland’s struggle for independence. In these films you could see Irish working-class folk being oppressed by the cruel and inhuman British occupier, and young Irish revolutionaries laying down their lives for their country. At first glance, these look like any of a series of ordinary rebel movies. The particularity about these films, however, is that they were made in Nazi Germany, shot in German with German actors, and commissioned and produced by Joseph Goebbels’ Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. These movies (The Fox of Glenarvon, 1940, and My Life for Ireland, 1941), alongside other anti-British ones, were never released in Ireland. Instead, they were released in Germany and the occupied countries, their real purpose being to change public opinion and destroy a latent pro-British sentiment which existed up to the outbreak of World War II. The films intended to show audiences the “true” nature of the evil British enemy, as conniving exploiters, heartless oppressors and ‘Jewified’ businessmen, thereby legitimizing the German ‘presence’ as liberators, protectors, and enlighteners. The heroic Irish, embodying proper German values and prepared to die for their patriotic cause, were held up as role models for the Germans to follow. But Goebbels’ plans backfired, as audiences in the occupied countries saw through the propaganda, and associated the British villains with the German oppressor. Instead of turning against the British, they related the Irish struggle for independence with their own struggle against the Nazis! The intentions were reversed: the Ministry of Propaganda was obliged to withdraw its own movies! This documentary uses film archive footage and features contributions from Irish and German historians, film specialists, surviving extras and eyewitnesses to revisit the making of these films. ‘Hitler’s Irish Movies’ investigates the ambig

This tells the story of one of the greatest prison escapes in history. A celebrated story in its day, this 150-year-old story has long since been forgotten. Set amid the background of a period of great change in world history - the last days of Colonial Britain - the remnants of their time resonate today in the British policy towards Northern Ireland. In 1876, a team of exiled Irish Fenians set out from the tiny whaling port town of New Bedford, Massachusetts to rescue six of their Fenian brothers from one of the most hostile and remote prisons on earth - Fremantle, Western Australia. It was a task which took two years to accomplish, required the financial assistance and silence of over 7000 Irish Americans and depended upon the ingenuity of three pivotal characters to pull off the greatest propaganda coup in Fenian history. Not long after the attempt the three characters published accounts of their role in the rescue. The film pieces together the strands of this complex escape by using excerpts from their stories. These intimate narratives portray moments of genuine heroism from the Catalpa's unlikely captain, George Anthony; reveal the breathtaking exploits of taciturn hero, John Breslin; and expose the agenda of the guilt-ridden mastermind behind the escape, John Devoy.