August 7, 1916 is significant in Irish history because it marks the premiere of Ireland’s first motion picture O’Neil of the Glen. It also led to another link between Ireland and America. There are so many Irish-American patriots who deserve to be remembered for the contributions they made for the sake of Ireland, yet their names have faded. One Irish-American was really an American Irishman, for even though he was raised in America, he was born in Kerry. His name was James Mark Sullivan and his family had been members of the Young Ireland Movement and editors of its newsletter, The Nation, and one member had even worked with Parnell in the Land League movement.
Young James came to America at the early age of 9 where he was raised and schooled eventually becoming an American lawyer. He gained a background in American politics and diplomatic corps serving as American Ambassador to Santo Domingo during the administration of Woodrow Wilson. According to his grand-daughter, he was recalled in 1915 for pro-Irish and anti-British activity, including refusing to allow British ships to refuel in Santo Domingo. Sullivan had married Ellen O’Mara who was from an actively nationalist Limerick family. His brother-in-law, Stephen O’Mara Jr., was a member of Sinn Fein, and later became Mayor of Limerick during the War for Independence. For Sullivan, an Irishman raised in America, marriage into the O’Mara clan brought him into the thick of Irish nationalist politics.
In July 1911, Sullivan delivered a speech on Republicanism at the grave of nationalist hero Wolfe Tone. Organized by Arthur Griffith, Tom Clarke, and the IRB, it was meant to serve as a political counter action during an official visit by newly-crowned King George V. Shortly thereafter, Sullivan convinced the rebel leaders that film propaganda was the answer to the British propaganda being carried in the everyday newspapers. In a letter to John Devoy, Thomas J. Clarke suggested that J. T. Jameson, a newsreel cameraman and exhibitor, with his ring of picture houses showing our pictures will do good business and the Dublin newspapers may go to hell. It was thus that early propaganda films were consciously devised to aid the cause of Irish nationalism.
As early as 1904, the Irish-made films fell under the suspicious eye of the British authorities. Many of these early film efforts were newsreels, but they soon took on a nationalist edge. Irish nationalists seized on motion pictures as propaganda vehicles as early as 1913. Coupled with the Irish nationalist sympathies of his family and his Irish nationalist connections, Sullivan played a crucial part in strengthening the cause of Irish independence. He formed the first native Irish film company and made an explicit propaganda film to raise funds for the nationalist cause. It is hard to overestimate the importance of the Film Company of Ireland (FCOI), the first Irish company that used exclusively Irish directors, actors, settings, and themes. Having pursued a career as an Irish-American politician, Sullivan knew that the fledgling film industry could be a powerful tool for publicizing the nationalist cause both in Ireland and among the Irish-American community. The FCOI participated fully in this propaganda effort in support of the cause. Sadly, some of FCOI’s early work was destroyed during the 1916 Easter Rising when their Dame Street office went up in flames.
Sullivan himself was arrested and charged with complicity in the Rising, but charges were denied by family members in the United States who hoped to secure his release. As a friend of Michael Collins, Sullivan had been under surveillance by the authorities, a fact confirmed by Sullivan’s grand-daughter. It has even been claimed that Sullivan fought with the rebels, but his niece later recalled that his family persuaded the authorities that uncle Jim was a purebred American-born citizen. Sullivan was interned with many others, first at Dublin Castle and later at Kilmainham, while his American relatives and friends campaigned for his release. John D. Moore, National Secretary of the Friends of Irish Freedom (FOIF), notified President Wilson by telegram of Sullivan’s arrest, although the President, whose Irish roots were planted in the Loyalist community, was judged not likely to intervene. Pressure from the State Department, Sullivan’s contacts at Tammany, some of whom were active in both theClan and the FOIF, and letters from his sisters eventually secured Sullivan’s release from Kilmainham. The British authorities may also have been bowing to American pressure to release American citizens in hopes that the United States would enter WWI on the Allied side.
Establishing an Irish film company was a logical move for an Irish-American who increasingly identified with Ireland as his homeland and his first efforts at an all-Irish production were largely successful. The FCOI even fueled rising political tensions after the Rising by producing historical films such as Knocknagow to further the nationalist cause. Charles Kickham’s 1873 novel Knocknagow depicted the plight of Irish peasants during the Great Hunger with its evictions and attendant miseries, the need to challenge the power of the landlords and prophesying a day of reckoning; it was the perfect vehicle to instigate Irish unity. The film’s popularity must be understood in the wider context of the events of the day: the release of the remaining prisoners of the Rising, the victory of Sinn Fein leaders Count Plunkett, Eamon DeValera and William Cosgrove in the parliamentary election, and massive resistance to forced conscription. The fact that Knocknagow made its public debut on the anniversary of the Rising was of no small significance to Irish patrons either.
By 1919, it was apparent that FCOI personnel were intimately associated with Irish nationalism. Indeed, John MacDonagh made a propaganda film for the Irish Republican Bond loan which was shown at gunpoint in theaters throughout Ireland by Irish Volunteers, who then made a quick escape. While Sullivan may not have been officially connected with the Republican Bond film, it is hard to imagine that he was not personally involved.
Sullivan returned to the United States in 1918 to incorporate the FCOI in Boston so as to be able to better market the films to American audiences. His audiences, both in Ireland and in America, were only a generation or two removed from the events depicted in his films; their memories were still fresh. Sullivan’s American audiences, nostalgic for the “old sod,” wanted a romanticized version of the past, but what Sullivan had learned from D.W. Griffith was a return to the Irish past by proven literary means. Accordingly, the film version of Knocknagow strategically used a famous nationalist novel, simplified the plot and dramatized individual scenes to glorify the land and send a clear signal that rebellion against oppression was not only right but imminent. James Sullivan’s production of Kickham’s Knocknagow (1918) was a natural expression of his commitment to the cause of Irish independence and can be seen on line at https://archive.org/details/Knocknagow.