Many thanks to the friend who sent us this extraordinary re-discovered film footage of Queen Victoria (1819-1901) visiting Ireland back in 1900,  that Queen’s last-ever visit to this country.

As a recent article on the British Heritage Travel website makes clear, the Museum of Modern Art, or MoMA, says that “in 1939, it received “a treasure trove of 36 reels of 68mm nitrate prints and negatives made during cinema’s first years”   The footage of Victoria visiting Ireland was among these treasures, but has only recently come to light again.  As one UK expert in early film points out, moving images of the Queen are rare, and since she never smiled for royal and official portraits, an image of her smiling and nodding (as she appears on this Irish royal visit)  is otherwise unknown.  It helps bring to life somebody who would otherwise appear a stern, perhaps even dour figure.

You can see a clip from the film in the video window just below.

But why did our friend send this clip to us?   Because she knew that over the last eighteen months we’ve added two new walking tours, each focusing on Dublin’s unexpectedly rich, spectacular legacy of beautiful Victorian architecture.  She also knew we had the last of our Victorian tours of our current series coming up soon, indeed very soon, on Sunday 23rd June, 2019.

You can see a clip from the film below and if you wish can also see details of our Victorian architecture and design walking tour, and indeed can reserve tickets for that event on this link here.

It is important to emphasis that this is a public tour, open to all.  So everybody is very welcome to join in and attend.  No prior or specialist knowledge of history or architecture is required at all.  At the time of writing there were 7 or 8 tickets remaining for the tour.   Please join us if you think you might enjoy it.

Here at last is that movie!  Skip ahead to 1:58 – for the footage of Queen Victoria in Ireland!