Radharc Programme 5
(reconstructed 2015)

Christy Brown’s Left Foot
Sunshine House [missing]

Country: Ireland
1st Broadcast: 18th October 1962
Duration: 27’20”

In the course of investigations the reconstruction team found unused footage, most notably interview out-takes with Christy’s mother Bridget. This previously unreleased material has been included at the end of the broadcast segment.

Christy Brown’s Left Foot Subject of the film ‘My Left Foot’ and eleventh of twenty-two children born to a working class Dublin family, Christy Brown had a mother who recognised his intelligence through all the distracting symptoms of cerebral palsy. By the time this biographical piece was filmed, her “imbecile” son had become an internationally successful author and a working artist, his output achieved with just one good foot on his typewriter and brush, which Christy demonstrates. Interviews include Christy, his mother Bridget and the social worker who influenced his early progress, Katriona Delahunt.

Sunshine House In Balbriggan Co. Dublin, Sunshine House hosts seaside holidays for thousands of Dublin children every year, bringing them out of the city for a week of play and prayer. Radharc filmed there in the Summer of 1962 but this lost segment must now be visualised from surviving documents. The script below presents a sense of the style and structure of the piece.

More information on Sunshine House here: http://www.sunshinefund.ie/about-the-sunshine-fund/history/

Click on image to enlarge for reading

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