Famous passengers aboard ocean liner SS Manhattan (later USS Wakefield during World War II) in the United States. Flashbacks show the USS Manhattan being christened by Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt on 5th December 1931. It is seen being launched from New York Shipbuilding Corporation in Camden New Jersey. View of maiden voyage on 10th August 1932, with passengers boarding the ship. It leaves a port for her first trip to Ireland, England, Germany and France. Couples dance aboard the deck of the SS Manhattan. Passengers including Babe Ruth, Jimmy Walker, Glenn Cunningham, and aviator Douglas Corrigan ("Wrong Way Corrigan") seen aboard the ship.
A panorama of the Irish countryside, sheep grazing. A map of Ireland is seen. Crowds, double decker buses, and vehicles on city streets of Belfast Northern Ireland. Statue of Lord Carson at Parliament. Activities in linen industry. Riveters and welders at work in a shipyard. Protestant Orangemen seen. A painting revering the King and Queen of England. Orangemen in dress costume in a July 12 annual parade celebrating victory at Battle of the Boyne. Custom officials on the Eire Northern Ireland border. Narrator talks about the recently independent Eireann and its people who are independent in thought and speech. Irish farmers with horse carts loaded head down a road. Farmers and business men talk in streets of Ireland and strike deals. Horses and carts among the men. An Irish boy standing with a group of sheep. Pastures and bucolic and scenic views of farms and villages in rural Ireland. Men and women spinning wool and weaving using traditional hand spinning wheels and traditional old loom methods.
Exterior of an Irish Government Building in Dublin. Prime MInister Eamon de Valera addresses officials. Views of country side in Ireland. Irish ham and bacon and care and raising of pigs and cows on farms. Farmers plowing in fields, and peat is mined with large harvesting machines and cut into briquettes. Activities in beer brewing (Guiness wooden barrels seen lined up at a brewery) and auto industry with a Ford assembly line in Cork Ireland. New cars on the assembly line being assembled by Irish workers. A Dunlop rubber processing plant in Cork Ireland. Rubber boots being manufactured at the Dunlop plant. The Shannon hydroelectic scheme power project in Limerick region of Ireland; views of the power plant and the river Shannon from which it draws power. View of the hydroelectric dam. Men working atop a large electric transmission tower. Women examine an electric table top mixer for the kitchen. A woman using an electric iron on clothes, and a view of an electric waffle maker and toaster. Streets of Dublin busy with activity. Clocks, shirts, ties, and cutlery in shop windows of Dublin, along with blankets and other goods all made in Ireland. Physicians and nurses gather in a surgical theater of a hospital. Newborn baby being washed in a maternity ward. Public housing construction efforts shown transforming older thatched cottages into modern homes. Signs in ancient Gaelic are shown, recently restored as the national language of the independent Eire. Irish schoolboys enter a school building. Many have no shoes and enter the school house barefoot. A teacher instructs the school boys in the classroom.
William T. Cosgrave after his victory in re-election is shown. Irish flag can be seen.
Irish flag on an official Irish Government building. Irish Prime Minister Eamon de Valera working in office. Exterior of Fianna Fail-The Republican Party building in Ireland. Officials in a meeting, de Valera addressing. Pictures of important historic political leaders who struggled for independence of Ireland can be seen. Narrator discussing Ireland's decision to remain neutral in World War 2. A statue on the top of a building. Children filling water from a communal hand pump for a town. Views of country side, sheep grazing in Ireland
Ireland President honors Eisenhower in Ireland. The Aras an Uachtarain building. The President of Ireland Eamon de Valera and the former President Sean Thomas O'Kelly honor the former President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower at Aras an Uachtarain. Dignitaries interact. Photographers take photographs. The wives of the dignitaries interact.