The Irish Tapes
THE IRISH TAPES was one of the first major video documentaries produced with 1/2-inch portable equipment. From 1971 to 1973, John Reilly and Stefan Moore shot over one hundred hours of footage in Northern Ireland, profiling one of the most volatile and violent moments in the decades-long conflict from the vantage point of those who lived through and remembered it. Includes rare interviews with members of the Provisional IRA, individuals suffering from unrelenting violence in Belfast and Irish-American perspectives on “The Troubles.” Originally shown as a three-channel, twelve-monitor installation at Global Village. Edited and kinescoped for broadcast by WNET in 1975. Originally shot in 1/2″ B & W video. Permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, Lincoln Center, 2013, Brooklyn Academy of Music 2014.
In 2014, curators at the Brooklyn Academy of Music described THE IRISH TAPES as “a striking example o the creative and political potential of the then-new video technology… offering an immediacy, intimacy, and unabashed subjectivity that was then unheard of in broadcast television journalism.”