Influential Irish documentarian George Morrison dies aged 102

Morrison was best known for his celebrated work Mise Éire, which premiered at the 1959 Cork Film Festival.

George Morrison. File Picture

Influential Irish documentarian George Morrison has died aged 102.

Morrison was best known for his celebrated 1959 work Mise Éire, which premiered that year at the Cork Film Festival.

The documentary, produced by Gael Linn and scored by Seán Ó Riada, dealt with key figures and events in Irish nationalism between the 1890s and 1910s. The title itself was taken from a 1912 poem by Republican revolutionary Patrick Pearse.

Morrison's work on Mise Éire was painstaking, and involved the identification, salvage, and restoration of more than 300,000 feet of newsreel and other footage.

The documentary, the first full feature-length film produced in Irish, was constructed from archival footage, a now common technique which was groundbreaking at the time. Morrison's follow-up documentary, Saoirse?, which charts the lead-up to the 1916 Easter Rising and the War of Independence, was released in 1961.

Born in Tramore in Waterford on November 3, 1922, Morrison's mother worked as an actress at Dublin's Gate Theatre. His father worked as a neurological anaesthetist.

Morrison studied medicine at Trinity College Dublin, but subsequently dropped out to pursue a career in film. The first project on which he worked was an uncompleted production of Dracula.

After being introduced to the founders of the Gate Theatre  — Micheál Mac Liammóir and Hilton Edwards — Morrison began working on documentaries in partnership with the venue.

Morrison's later documentary works included 1961's Rebellion, about Ireland from 1913 to 1923, Two Thousand Miles of Peril, released in 1972, and Dublin Day, a 2007 documentary on James Joyce’s Ulysses.

In 2009, Morrison received the Industry Lifetime Contribution Award at the Irish Film and Television Awards.

Speaking at the time, director Neil Jordan said: "It is remarkable what George Morrison has achieved through the 1970s and 1980s with almost no support. He's done extraordinary documentary work and extraordinary work as an archivist, one of the few in Ireland who have done that, he's an inspiration to all of us."

He was elected a Saoi of Aosdána in 2017 and presented with the symbol of the office of Saoi, the gold torc, by President Michael D Higgins.

George Morrison's first wife, Theodora Fitzgibbon, passed away in 1991. His second wife, Mrs Janet Morrison, died in 2019.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner in 2012, Morrison said Mise Éire was the film he enjoyed making most during his career. 

"It combined all operations of film-making in the one structure, the archival, too. I was very pleased with that.”

Speaking on Tuesday, President Higgins said Morrison "is and will remain an iconic and foundational figure in Irish filmography". 

"A filmmaker of immense craft and skill, he will rightly be remembered in particular as a great innovator in the techniques of film, using new and pioneering camera work while realising how film and music could be brought together in a way that is distinctive," he said. 

President Higgins said Morrison's "outstanding body of work that has made a deep and lasting impact on Irish culture and Irish cultural memory".

"I had the honour of bestowing the honour of Saoi of Aosdána on George Morrisson in 2017 and have also had the pleasure of meeting with him on many other occasions over the years, including when we marked his 100th birthday in Áras an Uachtaráin in 2023," he added.

"On behalf of Sabina and myself, may I extend my deepest condolences to his family, friends and all those who have been so inspired by his work over the decades.”