IF YOU’VE NEVER thought about sitting down to watch an hourlong documentary on Oireachtas TV, this might be the film to change your mind.

Narrated and presented by Ardal O’Hanlon, The Geneva Window – Through a Glass Darkly tells the story of the virtuosic and enigmatic Irish artist Harry Clarke and his most controversial project: a window meant for the League of Nations that the Irish state ended up selling back to Clarke’s widow just months after it was completed.

Best known for the iconic windows in Bewley’s Grafton St cafe, Clarke’s stained glass installations can be seen in churches throughout Ireland and in Dublin’s Hugh Lane Gallery. The Geneva Window saw him become embroiled in a dispute with Taoiseach WT Cosgrave, over its depictions of nudity, sexuality, drunkenness and the work of censored writers such as Liam O’Flaherty.

The titular window, which Clarke was commissioned by the Irish government to design as a gift to the headquarters of the newly-formed League of Nations in Geneva, was described at the time by a civil servant as depicting “bizarre, almost viciously evil people steeped in sex and drunkenness and sin”. 

Directed by Gerry Hoban, an IFTA winner for directing A Fanatic Heart: Geldof on Yeats, The Geneva Window tells the story of how an newly-sovereign Ireland made the choice to constrain one of its finest artists. Its themes rather seamlessly into modern-day discussions around the role played by art and artists in politics, and indeed the role that politics play in art. The decades-old tensions highlighted in Through A Glass Darkly feel especially timely in light of recent controversy surrounding an item of digital political art by Irish artist Spicebag. 

In that case, an edited image which showed Gardaí overseeing a historical eviction caused furore when some TDs and other public figures condemned it over its apparent criticism of policing in Ireland.

In 1920s Ireland, art was causing similar ructions. O’Hanlon reads from correspondence between Clarke and then-Taoiseach WT Cosgrave, who was personally involved in commissioning the work. 

Happy Birthday Harry Clarke! Our new documentary about his ill-fated masterpiece, The Geneva Window, airs this Friday (repeated Sunday) on Oireachtas TV, presented by @ardalsfolly supported by @CNaM_ie Sound & Vision fund, produced by @StrikeFilms #GenevaWindow #HarryClarke pic.twitter.com/QGY6XHVPgi

— Gerry Hoban (@ramblinghobo) March 17, 2024

We get an overview of the tension between the two Irelands that were beginning to emerge from the War of Independence and Civil War: a liberal and pluralistic Ireland aflush with mystical and artistic expression, or a more orderly Ireland, shaped by adherence to the Catholic church. By the end of the 1920s, the latter school of thought had won out, and the Censorship of Publications Act was introduced. 

Clarke, in turn, was horrified in his letters that the Taoiseach would suggest replacing an offending panel, and suggested – in an amusing show of self-importance – that the Taoiseach make an appointment with him as soon as possible.

Clarke’s own ill health is a noteworthy subplot to the window’s inception, as it was designed and made between 1927 and 1930. Clarke would die in 1931, in the Swiss town of Chur, near where he had been receiving treatment at a sanatorium in Davos. In letters home shortly before his death, Clarke complained of being owed £450 by the government. Months later, and with Eamon De Valera taking over as Taoiseach, it was proposed that the window – which had become cracked in the government’s possession, according to the minutes of an Executive Council meeting – be sold back to the widow at the same price it was bought.

The piece itself – which is shown in extensive detail – comprises of eight stained glass panels, bearing 15 passage from a work of Irish literature admired by Clarke. Each passage is accompanied by an illustration from Clarke’s own imagination, in some cases not reflecting the content of the literature at all. 

One of the most contentious panels, based on the poem The Others by Seumas O’Sullivan, depicts “a mischievous-fairy man” who appears to be taking the hand of a fair maiden and placing it on his genitals. Another shows Joxer from Sean Casey’s play Juno and the Paycock looking lascivious and in a state of drunkenness. Clarke’s rendition of Playboy of the Western World also features a male character groping a woman in a red dress. 

Dr Róisín Kennedy further notes that the male characters depicted in the window are androgynous out of kilter with a desire to make Ireland seem less feminine. Through A Glass Darkly calls to mind questions of decency, morality, and cultural standards in Ireland – questions that continue to be picked apart on Liveline semi-regularly. 

Clarke’s work continues to be hotly sought after today and in December of last year, one of his rarest pieces – based on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream – became part of the national collection at the National Gallery of Ireland. 

The documentary aired on Oireachtas TV at 6pm yesterday evening, and will be shown again at 9pm on Sunday.