Top o’ the day to you! It was on this day that Darby O’Gill and the Little People was released theatrically, the live-action film about wee little people (thanks to big special effects) which tells the tale of love and leprechauns upsetting a small town in southern Ireland. Darby O’Gill features Albert Sharpe as Darby, a frisky old storyteller, who feels life will be easier for his daughter Katie (Janet Munro) if he can match her with Michael (Sean Connery). For this to happen, he must match wits with King Brian (Jimmy O’Dea), a wee 5,000 year old crafty monarch of the leprechauns. Being of Irish ancestry, Walt Disney’s fascination with Darby O’Gill began as soon as he first discovered the stories in the mid-1940s. As early as 1946, he sent artists to Ireland for research… and that’s no blarney!
