Crankie Island Songs

An ongoing collaboration with illustrators that began with Peter Crann bringing songs alive visually through a specially made Crankie Box (a vintage illuminated story-telling device) to unfold the imagery of the song in a theatrical and evocative way.

A Crankie Box is what it sounds like – a box cranked in order to work, hence ‘crankie’. Originating in Europe in the late 18 th century, they were referred to as moving-panoramas during the 19th century.

An illustrated scroll is wound on two spools and cranked by hand while a story is told, or a tune played. Or, as is the case with Cathy and Peter’s Crankie Song Project, while a song is sung, allowing a spool of images to play out in time with the music or song. A crankie box acts as a kind of animation, and is the oldest form of movie-making. With what it may lack in sophistication, it more than makes up for in charm and immediacy. As it begins to work a kind of magic draws you into the unfolding story resulting in an intimate, almost dream-like form of storytelling, brought wonderfully to life in this project.

With these Crankie Island Songs, Cathy - with the support of the Arts Council of Ireland - has married  in sight and sound some of Ireland’s oldest story-songs via the portal of a custom-made crankie box. Nine videos are already available on YouTube (at Crankie Island Songs ) with more to follow.

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