Challenge - A Northern Ireland Housing Trust film (1965)

This is a fascinating film. It tells the story of the Northern Ireland Housing Trust, made in 1965, before the era of the Troubles completely changed the direction of the country. The Trust ran between 1945 and 71 and was funded by the government with loans repayable over 60 years, similar to new town development corporations.

Politics hung heavy over the Trust. Catholics weren't represented on the board, and some districts would not allow building new estates in their areas, because it might change the political complexion of them. By the mid-sixties a civil rights movement began to call out the biases and discrimination rife in housing, among many other things.

The film is made by the housing trust, and so unsurprisingly paints an entirely positive image of what was going on. We see lots of fascinating postwar housing going up - Wimpey's 'no fines' houses and Laing's 'Easiform', where concrete was poured into a shuttered 'jelly mould' to create a house. There's high rise flats, deck access flats, old people's homes, terraced houses, whole estates. The optimism of the film and the architecture is fascinating.

But the oddest thing about it is how English it seems. The narration, the tone, the lack of any Norn Iron accent or signifiers. It's a film in denial of the place it's about. A strange and interesting record, as much for what it doesn't say as for what it does.

You can see the film here.

This essay by Martin Melaugh is a fascinating history of the Northern Ireland Housing Trust.

- - -