Film Ireland

[2] According to the magazine's first editor, Johnny Gogan (who shared the credit "compiled by" with Mike Collins and John Gormley in early issues): "The 1987 Film Base AGM had called for a better distribution of information to the growing membership.

Ireland was a word-of-mouth culture where information was guarded and opinions often verbalised on bar-stools but less often committed to print.

Vinny McCabe and Mike Collins had taken up the cause of a newsletter after the AGM and I was dragged in to assist their information sub-committee, joined by John Gormley (now TD)".

And the job of a publication like Film Ireland is to provide a small space for that culture to grow.

To these core objectives Mac Cárthaigh added three further aims: "To raise the profile of cultural cinema exhibition across the island of Ireland", "To promote awareness of and appreciation for Ireland's cinematic heritage" and "To recognise the short film as a cultural artefact, and to encourage discussion of the form".

[16] Low-budget Irish productions such as Karl Golden's The Honeymooners and Perry Ogden's Pavee Lackeen were championed by the magazine,[17][18] and Film Ireland was one of the first publications to write at length about John Carney's ultra-low-budget feature Once.