[3] This was followed by the feature Willy Reilly and His Colleen Bawn (1920, at the height of the Irish War of Independence), a historical drama based on a novel by William Carleton and produced by Jim Sullivan.
It was shot in the grounds of St Enda's Rathfarnham, where his brother Thomas and Patrick Pearse had founded a school to promote Irish education.
Buying the bonds were what the subtitle cards described as 'Republican notabilities' including Erskine Childers, Arthur Griffith, Grace Gifford (whose sister Muriel had married Thomas MacDonagh, and who married Joseph Plunkett an hour before his execution in 1916), and Joseph MacDonagh, his brother, Minister for Labour in the first Dáil, who would die on hunger strike on Christmas Day 1922.
In 1922 he directed some light comedy films produced by Norman Whitten, including Casey's Millions, with Barrett MacDonnell, Chris Sylvester and Jimmy O'Dea, which was critically well received.
In the same year he directed Wicklow Gold, from a libretto by himself, with Chris Sylvester, Jimmy O'Dea and Abbey actress Ria Mooney.