Also known as Norah O'Neale (USA)

Irish Hearts has been claimed as one of the main contenders for the first ever Irish sound feature film (see Essays Section, Brian McIlroy "British Filmmakaing in the 1930s and 1940s").

Set in ireland the film is based around Dermot Fitzgerald, a surgeon at St. Brigid's Hospital, Dublin, who loves Nurse Norah, but is unwilling to marry Norah. Meanwhile, Nurse Otway, having been operated on for appendicitis by Dermot, compromises him by kissing him in front of the matron. Dermot then announces his engagement to Nurse Otway and then typhus breaks out in the seaside village of Innisfallen. Dermot is asked to help the resident doctor, and through overwork contracts the fever himself. Nurse Otway, realising that Dermot does not love her, calls Nurse Norah to take her place at his bedside, renouncing her engagement. Dermot recovers to realise Norah is to be his wife.

 

Starring: Lester Matthews, Nancy Burne, Molly Lamont, Patrick Knowles

Actress Nancy Burne in Irish Hearts - Copyright © The Brian Desmond Hurst Estate

Courtesy of the Allan Smith Collection

The Irish Times on 19th March 1935 reviewed Irish Hearts and the clipping was retained by Brian (note the annotation Mr Hurst in the top left corner).  The review explains that Irish Hearts is the “first Irish-made feature length talkie” and goes on to comment on the Hollywood influences that can be seen in the production and story line.

Brian with Sara Algood - Copyright © The Brian Desmond Hurst Estate

The following article is from Irish Film and TV Research Online- www.tcd.ie./irishfilm

GB Rel Feb 1935; IR Rel 10/3/1935. Aka NORA O'NEALE. USA title NORAH O'NEALE. Made at Cricklewood Studios. Exteriors were filmed in Dublin. 'As well as being the most ambitious, [IRISH HEARTS is] also the most daring film made within the four shores of Ireland. Hitherto... Irish-made films, with eyes trained on the foreign market, especially the United States, have depicted, almost to the exclusion of everything else, the simplicities of life. Although IRISH HEARTS does not neglect to give us such sequences, they do not constitute the whole film... In our first Irish made feature-length talkie a leaf is taken out of Hollywood's much-thumbed book of romances. The story opens in modern Dublin, and about half-way through the love story is temporarily suspended while we view native song and dance. This latter sequence, beautifully set and photographed, is one which MAN OF ARAN urgently needed... for many people thought that Flaherty's film only gave a one-sided view of life on the island.' (EH 12/3/1935:3).

Reference
DEM 12/3/1935:3; KW No. 1438, 8/11/1934; MFB Vol. l.No. 10,Nov 1934:91; SI 10/3/1935:4; Picturegoer Vol. 4, No. 196, 23/2/1935:36.
Gifford 09646: Nov 1934.