WATCH: A school trip to the Dublin Zoo nearly 100 years ago

"Dublin Zoo," a short Irish film from the 1930s, is now available to stream for free via the Irish Film Institute's IFI Archive Player. Father Delany’s lens captures a school visit to Dublin Zoo. The highlight is a visit to the elephant enclosure where the Zookeeper demonstrates how to mount the elephant like a horse. “Dublin Zoo” is part of the Irish Film Institute’s Father Delany Collection .

The Irish Film Institute’s Fa‐ ther Delany Collection

Father Jack Delany was born in 1906 and died in 1980. He was ordained in 1930 at the age of 24 and served as a parish priest in Dublin in the 1930s and 1940s. In the 1930s Fr Delany was assigned to the north inner city parish which included Gloucester Street (now Seán MacDermott Street), Rutland Street, and Gardiner Street. It was an impoverished neighbourhood of densely populated tenements. Father Delany grew up in a middleclass family and had great admiration for residents of the innercity, particularly admiring their sense of community and resilience in the face of hardship. His parishioners are the subject of many of his films and his films of tenement life provide us with a fascinating glimpse of life in 1930s inner city Dublin. These scenes include children playing in rubble, stall holders, clothes drying on the balconies of flats and residents of the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity Convent (which housed a Magdalene Laundry).

Father Delany’s niece Irene Devitt, along with her late husband John Devitt, deposited Fr Delany’s film collection with the IFI Irish Film Archive in the 1990s.

“Dublin Zoo” is published here with kind-permission of Irene Dev it ta nd with thanks to the Irish Film Institute (IFI), who IrishCentral has partnered up with to bring you a taste of what their remarkable collection entails. You can find all IrishCentral articles and videos from the IFI here.

To watch more historic Irish footage, visit the IFI Archive Player, the Irish Film Institute’s virtual viewing room that provides audiences around the globe free, instant access to Irish heritage preserved in the IFI Irish Film Archive. Irish Culture from the last century is reflected through documentaries, animation, adverts, amateur footage, feature films, and much more. You can also download the IFI Archive Player App for free on iPhone, Android, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Roku. IrishCentral has partnered up with the IFI to bring you a taste of what their remarkable collections entail. You can find all IrishCentral articles and videos from the IFI here.