Glimpses of Erin: A dusty, lovely time capsule

If you have a soft spot for grainy, silent-era travelogues, you’ll find Glimpses of Erin pretty charming. It’s definitely not for anyone who needs a plot or high-octane editing, but if you like watching people walk through muddy fields in 1930, you’re in the right place. ☘️

The whole thing feels like a very polite postcard sent from a ghost. We spend a good chunk of time in Galway just staring at cattle, which sounds boring, but there’s a strange, rhythmic quality to the way the farmers move. They look like they’ve been doing the exact same thing for six hundred years.

There is this moment in the Galway market that just goes on forever. Nobody is really talking—obviously—but you can almost hear the low hum of the crowd. It reminded me a bit of the frantic, messy energy in Bulloney, though obviously much less chaotic and way more damp.

Then we cut to Dublin and everything shifts gears. Suddenly there are cars and people in hats and it feels like a different planet compared to the countryside shots. The contrast is sharp, maybe even a little jarring.

Things that stuck out:

• The sheer amount of mud on everyone's boots. You can feel the weight of it.
• The way the camera operator seems obsessed with filming people who are clearly trying to avoid being filmed.
• The transition to Dublin is so abrupt it feels like the reel got spliced by someone who was in a massive hurry to get to lunch.

It’s not trying to be a deep cultural study or anything. It’s just a camera pointed at a place that doesn't look like that anymore. Sometimes I think we overthink these old shorts, looking for some grand narrative about the human condition, but sometimes a cow is just a cow.

It lacks the narrative punch of Our Modern Maidens, but it has a weird, quiet soul. It’s the kind of thing you watch when you’re tired of modern movies being so loud all the time. It just exists, and that’s plenty.

I kept waiting for someone to actually say something to the camera, but nobody does. They just stare, or look away, or keep walking. It’s a bit eerie, honestly. The silence in these old films hits different than in modern stuff. It’s not an artistic choice; it’s just the technology catching up to the world.