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Life
| 1898-1978; b. 4 March; educ. CBS; joined British Army, 1915; won MC and promoted to rank of Major; returned to Ireland in 1919; joined the IRA; appt. aide and adviser to Michael Collins; became director of military training; led abortive rescue of Seán Mac Eoin from Mountjoy Jail, dressed in his British uniform, with Joe Leonard; supported Treaty side; commanded artillery at the Four Courts, 28 June 1922; served asn Major General in the pro-Treaty National Army; present with Collins when he was killed at Béal na mBlátha; resigned his command following the death of Collins, Aug. 1922; became Clerk of Seanad Éireann after Civil War - thus taking up one of the ‘plumb jobs’ of the new administration; embarked on film-making in Hollywood and London; established Dublin Film Productions Management with Louis Elliman at Ardmore Studios (12 May 1958), following purchase of Ardmore House, Bray, Co. Wicklow, and established with funding from the ICC of the State Dev. Bank supplied by Sean Lemass; |
| he produced Macken’s Home is the Hero (1960), directed Fielder Cook (RKO); also Broth of A Boy (1959), and The Poacher’s Daughter (1960), the former is based on The Big Birthday, a play by Hugh Leonard, and now directed by George Pollock, with Barry Fitzgerald as a 110-year old man, and Harry Brogan as his 80-year old son; the he latter, released in Ireland as Sally’s Irish Rogue, was based on The New Gossoon by George Shiels, first seen on stage in New York in 1930, and here directed for film by George Pollock also, with Julie Harris and a supporting cast of Abbey players; other Dalton productions from Ardmore were This Other Eden (1959), Lies My Father Told Me, and The Devil’s Agent; d. 4 March 1978 [DIB], Dublin. DIB FDA |
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| Dalton with Michael Collins |
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References
Anthony Slide, The Cinema and Ireland (McFarland & Co. 1988), pp.29-30, 32, gives details as in Life [supra].
Kevin Rockett, et al., Cinema & Ireland (1988), calls him a veteran of World War I, the War of Independence and the Civil War, turned film distributor and producer; successfully filmed Professor Tim by George Shiels, and filmed St. John Ervine’s play Boyd’s Shop, 1936 play, directed as film by Emmet Dalton (1960) [var 1957; Conor McCarthy, Modernisation [ ...] in Ireland, 2000, p.166.)
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