One minute you're in the midst of a civil war, the next minute you're helping an American make Darby O'Gill and the Little People.
A letter has recently emerged which indicates that Walt Disney himself requested a meeting with Eamon De Valera in the mid-1940s, while on a research trip to Ireland, which would ultimately be the inspiration behind the 1959 children's film.
The letter, from the Consulate of Ireland in San Francisco to the Dep of Foreign Affairs, read:
I beg to report that Mr. Jack Lavin, a Director of the Walt Disney Productions, Burbank, near Los Angeles, telephoned me recently and informed me that Mr. Walt Disney and a party of six, including himself, will sail from New York on the 14th November on the S.S Queen Elizabeth for Southampton, and will go directly from there to Dublin. They have applied for their passports, and I have sent the necessary application forms for Irish visas.
“The party intends to tour Ireland on a research mission, with the intention of making cartoon motion pictures dealing with Irish life and folklore. I informed Mr. Lavin that I would give Mr. Disney a letter to you, so he would be facilitated in meeting parties such as the President of the Irish Tourist Association. Mr. Disney would also like to meet An Taoiseach.
There's no record of whether Disney actually managed to meet Dev, before returning to America and eventually settling on a film adoption of Irish-American writer Hermione Templeton Kavanagh's collection of stories, called 'Darby O'Gill and the Good People.'
Disney, Darby O'Gill (+ de Valera). Origins of Disney's famous 1959 film in a 1946 trip to Ireland NAI DFA 323/32 pic.twitter.com/cfX05Nk5Cx
— DIFP (@DIFP_RIA) May 20, 2015
hat-tip: Irish Central
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