Dublin after Easter Rising 1916

A first draft of history: astounding images of Ireland's rubble-strewn capital in the aftermath of a historic rebellion.

The rebellion crushed, the cameras whir and Ireland's capital stumbles onto the silver screen. This remarkable record surveys the smashed city centre: ruined buildings astride rubble-strewn streets, peopled by thousands of British troops and by-standing Dubliners, everything filmed with a minimum or art or artifice and the more compelling for it.

Made up mostly of static or slow-panning long shots, the film also offers some eye-opening closer looks: hospital interiors where cheerful nurses attend to wounded Sinn Feiners; soldiers behind sandbags, loading a machine gun for the camera's benefit. The film appears not to adopt any overt position on the violent rebellion or the brutal British response, content simply to commit a first draft of history to celluloid. Attributed to an obscure production company, it may be well be a composite of footage from various sources. Certainly the opening images, evoking a more peaceful Dublin, are older than the rest: a 1916 version of library footage. The opening pan across O'Connell Street is framed through Shamrock-shaped masking, as if to emphasise the contrast with the terrible beauty of what follows.