Walt Disney’s 1946 visit to Ireland might have resulted in this movie

A trip to Ireland in 1946 by Walt Disney to do research on Irish folklore may have resulted in the making of 1959 movie “Darby O’Gill and the Little People.”

A British Movietone newsreel show Walt Disney and his wife, Lillian, meeting with President Sean O’Kelly at his residents in November 1946.

There are also several shots of Disney with Irish politician Eamon de Valera. In another scene, the Disneys are at an airport where a stewardess hands Disney small model of a leprechaun.

Here is the letter, released by the Royal Irish Academy:

I beg to report that Mr. Jack Lavin, a Director of the Walt Disney Productions, Burbank, near Los Angeles, telephoned me recently and informed me that Mr. Walt Disney and a party of six, including himself, will sail from New York on the 14th November on the S.S Queen Elizabeth for Southampton, and will go directly from there to Dublin. They have applied for their passports, and I have sent the necessary application forms for Irish visas.

The party intends to tour Ireland on a research mission, with the intention of making cartoon motion pictures dealing with Irish life and folklore. I informed Mr. Lavin that I would give Mr. Disney a letter to you, so he would be facilitated in meeting parties such as the President of the Irish Tourist Association. Mr. Disney would also like to meet An Taoiseach.

Mr. Lavin has written directly to the Irish Tourist Association for literature, but in the meantime, I have sent him a few booklets from the old meagre stock on hands here. I have also loaned Mr. Lavin the box of glossies of Irish scenery sent recently to this office.