Dermot Breen in front of a poster for An Tóstal

Dermot Breen in front of a poster for An Tóstal

Cork Film Festival, Dermot Breen, Tóstal, Poster, Joan Denise Moriarty, Cork Ballet Company, Frank Sanquest, Cork Symphony Orchestra

This is an undated black and white photo of a young Dermot Breen, customary cigarette in hand, posing in front of a large poster advertising the various aspects of the Tóstal festival. Tóstal was a pageant held around Ireland to celebrate Ireland’s national image through song, dance, and film. It was inaugurated in Cork in 1953, during which time Breen was on the Tóstal committee before he went on to found the film festival in 1956, running it until his death in 1978.

The poster has an image of a ballet dancer which references the Cork Ballet Company founded by Joan Denise Moriarty in 1947. The ballet gave its first performance in June 1947 at the Cork Opera house under the baton of Aloys Fleischmann and the Cork Symphony Orchestra. The stage scenery was by Marshall Huston and Frank Sanquest whose image also features in the festival archive. The pictorial reference to film on the left of the picture, with a ribbon of film negative topped with Shandon Tower, helps us date this picture to at least the late-fifties when Breen founded the film festival.

University College Cork, Cork Film Festival, The Irish Times

Cork Film Festival Collection

University College Cork

The Irish Times

Photo
TIFF
JPEG

English, eng

Cork, Ireland

Photo

197 x 245mm