Born: May 7th, 1935
Died: December 12th, 2022
Jim Quin, who has died aged 87, was a pioneer of Irish animation and founder of the Quin Films studio. He produced classic stop-motion series for RTÉ television throughout the 1970s and 1980s. These included such series as An Baile Beag (1975, 1977-79), Muintir na Móna (1983-85) (for RTÉ's Dilín Ó Deamhas), Lug na Locha (1981), and numerous inserts for RTÉ's Bosco (produced by Joe O’Donnell) that included the memorable Tongue Twisters, Gregory Gráinneog, and Faherty’s Garden (created with David Byrne). His work often dealt with Irish subjects, as with the series An Baile Beag (1977-79) which followed the adventures of a young boy called Jimín in a bucolic Irish village set in an indeterminate period of the mid-20th century. Quin Films, along with Aidan Hickey’s Grafliks, were the two of the main indigenously founded studios to created original animated content for RTÉ's children’s schedules during the 1970s and into the 1990s.
Quin began animating puppets for RTÉ television in the attic of his house at Leopardstown in Dublin and gradually expanded his operation into a Portacabin in the back garden. Quin relocated the studio to Tipperary in 1982, initially using a house on the grounds of a disused coalmine as a studio space. It was there that Ireland’s first dedicated stop-motion studio was built by Quin Films in 1987. The studio and Quin are notable for their longevity of production, spanning across three decades and two generations of animators, and have a prolific place within the history of Irish television animation produced on a cottage industry scale. In terms of Irish animation history, Quin Films can be likened to the UK’s Smallfilms (helmed by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin) that made such classics as Bagpuss and The Clangers or Gordon Murray Productions that made the fondly recalled series Trumpton and Chigley.
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Quin Films was taken over by Jim’s son David in the early 1990s and the studio went on to create animations for RTÉ up until 1999, with the studio finally closing in 2006. However, the works of the studio have remained vivid in the imaginations of many Irish viewers both as nostalgic reminiscences and sometimes for their slightly scary qualities (the peculiar hedgehog of Gregory Gráinneog or Deirdre the Giant from The Morbegs’ Dunín, anyone?). In recent years snippets of Jim Quin’s animated works have been made available once again through the RTÉ Archives player (Lug na Locha) and The Best of Bosco DVDs. Scenes from Muintir na Móna were prominently featured in RTÉ's 2021 celebration for Seachtain na Gaeilge, Cúpla Focal, which was a wry take on the quirks of learning the Irish language through television.
Jim was predeceased by his wife Cáit and survived by his children David, Jimmie, Nuala (O’Brien) and Liam, son-in-law Pat, daughters-in-law Katy and Geraldine, and grandchildren Amy, Ken, Sophie, Thomas, Daniel and Xander, great-grandson Logan, and brother Bernard.
He will be deeply missed.