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IRISH FILM AND TELEVISION - 2007

The Year in Review

Tony Tracy (ed.)

Introduction

Tony Tracy

From Kings to Cáca Mílis: Recent Trends in Irish Film and Television as Gaeilge

Seán Crosson

Cré na Cille

Gearóid Denvir

The Kings’ Irish: Dialogue, Dialect and Subtitle in Kings

Eithne O’Connell

Altered Images: Shrooms and Irish Cinema

Roddy Flynn

Small Engine Repair

Ruth Barton

Lenny Abrahamson’s Garage: A Drama of Cinematic Silence

Barry Monahan

Prosperity: Social Realism in the New Millennium

Díog O’Connell

The Celtic ‘Chick-flick’: How About You and PS I Love You

Debbie Ging

The Brave One

Maria Pramaggiore

Experimental Conversations: Ourselves Connected?

Donal Foreman

Ghosts of Empire: Mitchell and Kenyon in Ireland and Saoirse?

Harvey O’Brien

At Home With the Clearys

Pat Brereton

Interview with Simon Perry

Tony Tracy

Introduction

Tony Tracy

2007 will be viewed by future historians as the year the ‘Celtic Tiger’ finally outstayed its welcome as a credible description of the Irish economy or mindset. As we make our way into the palpably bleaker landscape of 2008, the past year will be recalled as another milestone in the redefinition of our cultural identity. Northern Ireland was once again central to this interrogation, though in surprising ways. The restoration of the Northern Assembly was a turning point for Nationalist–Unionist relations and many were bemused by the warm relations between the DUP’s First Minster Ian Paisley and Sinn Fein’s Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness (a softening of relations that may have contributed to Paisley’s resignation). It will be some time before there is as dramatic and emotional an expression of Ireland’s renegotiation of its nationalist project as the sight of the Irish rugby team comprehensively defeating England at the highly symbolic Croke Park ground (24 February 2007, IRELAND 43 ENGLAND 13). For many, the resonance of this event was greatly augmented by their ‘experience’ of Bloody Sunday (1920) in Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins; itself a powerful argument for the importance of a national cinema as an historical tool. While the dignified reception of ‘God Save the Queen’ signalled a kind of ‘late-nationalist’ maturity in our relations with Britain that many felt proud of, the decision by the former state airline Aer Lingus to abandon its Shannon-Heathrow route in favour of Belfast-Heathrow tested geographical conceptions of the nation and provoked a vociferous response revolving around the meanings and obligations of the ‘national carrier’, and in particular the state’s responsibility to the west of Ireland (a long-time locus of imaginative investment in Irish identity) in an era of ‘Open Skies’. With the revelation that staff on these Belfast-London flights will not use (for the first time in Aer Lingus’ history) the symbolic cúpla focal (‘a few words’ in Irish – usually on landing and take off), the cultural ambitions of Irishness became further diluted from the ambitions of earlier governments in more conservative times. If the symbolism seems overstretched consider that Aer Lingus was the last and first point of contact with the homeland for many thousands of emigrants who left Ireland in the 1980s and then returned in unprecedented numbers in 1990s to become the bedrock of the ‘Tiger economy’. Those cúpla focal were often the last and first words of their mother tongue heard as they left and returned. Ironically, just as these linguistic ties began to loosen, the European Parliament declared Irish an official language in January 2007 meaning that Ireland’s MEPs could address the parliament as Gaeilge for the first time; though to date there has been very little use made of this long sought-for recognition.

These events formed part of the backdrop for this year’s film and television. The status of the Irish language within the audiovisual sector displayed equally mixed, and perhaps surprising fortunes. In last year’s edition we noted that Bord Scannán na hÉireann/The Irish Film Board (IFB) had just undergone a corporate re-branding exercise and that the Irish title has been demoted in its logo (although it retains its premier status in print), with no trace of anything vaguely Celtic or ‘traditional’ in its public image. This semiotic shift gained cultural traction in 2007 with the decision — criticised in this issue by Gearóid Denvir — by the board not to offer funding to Robert Quinn’s Irish language feature Cré na Cille. That decision notwithstanding,  Sean Crosson’s overview of developments in Irish language broadcasting contends that there has never been a better year for the language in film and television, albeit in a still limited and piecemeal manner. Elsewhere in our special section on Irish language productions Eithne O’Connell derides the tokenistic and faintly preposterous melange of Irish dialects spoken in Kings, but acknowledges that there is some kind of renaissance — or more properly awakening — in this long under-performing sector. In our interview with the Film Board Chief Executive Simon Perry, he speaks of a desire to explicitly encourage and support the work of TG4 and put an end to ‘ghettoising’ Irish language production.

After an extended period of lack-lustre performance, it has been a good year for the IFB overall. A special on Irish film production in trade publication Variety in early 2007 signalled a strong sense of a new beginning for the indigenous industry. ‘Simon Perry has brought a fresh attitude to the job’, it reported, quoting Perry, “One thing I set out to do was to revive a feeling of confidence among filmmakers here,” a theme he follows up in greater detail in our interview with a discussion of the challenges facing the Irish audiovisual sector and his vision of how its future might be best approached in the current conditions.

Key to Perry’s revised structures of engagement is a shift of emphasis away from the rather hierarchical and distrustful emphasis on filmmakers raising finance first in the marketplace before receiving public money. Instead, Perry seems to be offering a vote of confidence in Irish film producers, most evident in his long-term funding for 10 indigenous production companies; an unprecedented action.

Such confidence finds – admittedly limited – justification in the talent and indeed general variety and quality of output the Irish industry exhibited over the past year. Once — favourably reviewed in these pages last year in advance of its Sundance award and ‘breakout’ success in the United States (after a pretty poor box-office performance in Ireland), represented the feature film highpoint of the year; which was brought to a ‘Hollywood ending’ with an Oscar win for Best Song. But there were other reasons to be cheerful. The Tudors – Showtime’s 10 hr Television drama series on the life of Henry VIII starring Jonathon Rhys Meyers, finished shooting its second series and seems likely to return for a third. The success of the series may seem tangential to an Irish film industry but it has kept significant numbers of Irish crew at work for an extended period ensuring that some of the most talented actors and craft personnel maintain and develop their expertise at the highest international level. Particularly notable is the work of set designer Tom Conroy and costume designer Joan Bergin who was rewarded by her peers with an Emmy Award for Best Costume Design in 2007. Also notable was the continued critical success of the Mark O’Halloran/Lenny Abrahamson partnership which produced the feature film Garage (reviewed below by Barry Monahan) and the 4-part TV series Prosperity (reviewed by Díog O’Connell). In Saoirse Ronan – Oscar nominated for her performance in Atonement – Ireland has a striking new acting talent. And although not covered in these pages, there is considerable activity and success in the animation sector as well as emerging talent coming through in short film production.

Despite these successes however, there is a strong sense of an industry really struggling to build and maintain momentum. In this year’s review Simon Perry admits as much in his discussion of the ‘Catalyst’ funding scheme while Roddy Flynn explores Shrooms as a watershed instance of where Irish cinema might be heading. Other reviews reveal similar structuring concerns: films which seem to stand on the threshold of the national and international, or more accurately Irish and American, albeit in different ways. Ruth Barton examines the country and western backdrop of Small Engine Repair, Debbie Ging examines the gender demarcations of two recent Irish ‘chick-flicks’ and Maria Pramaggiore explores Neil Jordan’s New York-set revenge thriller The Brave One as an auteur work terminally compromised by the bureaucracy of Hollywood filmmaking practices. Where such films fit in the seemingly endless debate about definitions of an ‘Irish Cinema’ has yet to be worked out but this review offers an early opportunity for some interesting thumbnail theories. Martin McLoone’s recently published collection of essays are prefaced by an acknowledgement of the centrality of change in contemporary Irish life and a sense of loss. “At a time of change something is lost as well as gained so that changing times are full of excitement and tinged with regret – and so is this book”. *

As one of the key contributors to discussions of Irish Cinema, McLoone’s book – and the films it looks back on — feels like the end of an era. The 1990s seem a long time ago both in the amount of films made and the kind of themes they engaged with. What is perplexing for the commentator on Irish film is that the decade gone felt like the beginning of a national cinema, the emergence of talents, themes and the inevitable — if often clichéd — working out of decades of unprocessed history and stories. Flynn’s point, and one which comes up in my interview with Simon Perry, is that the first 10 years of the second film board were something of a golden age: In today’s changed economic and media structures, national cinema, like a national airline, is no longer the protected, inward-looking entity it once was.

At time of going to press, ‘Dustin the Turkey’ was voted (by the Irish public) winner of Eurosong 2008 having beaten five more traditional singers (i.e. flesh, bone, voice) for the honour to represent Ireland at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Serbia. ** This seems both a baffling and entirely apt result. The Eurovision is a key site of emergence for the ‘Celtic Tiger’, when we mesmerised the world, and ourselves, with the interval performance of Riverdance in 1994. The event was held in Dublin and we wanted to show our fellow Europeans that we were a people who could simultaneously inhabit tradition and modernity; shattering their stereotypes even as we reinforced them. In those few exhilarating minutes Irish dancing and Ireland seemed born anew, high-kicking and speed-stepping cultural nationalism into the modern age, invigorating our emerging confidence and, in the pairing of Irish-Americans Jean Butler and Michael Flatley, symbolically closing the circle on the millions of emigrant passages from our shores. This latest ‘song’ for Europe suggests that either Ireland has lost its long inward-looking fascination with its identity and moved to a position of post-modern irony on the international stage, or we’ve lost all sense of self-respect. Either way, the Tiger is now a Turkey.

Notes

* Martin McLoone, Film, Media and Popular Culture in Ireland (Irish Academic Press, 2008)

** http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/24/ireland.television?gusrc=rss&feed=worldnews

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From Kings to Cáca Mílis: Irish film and television as Gaeilge in 2007.

Reviewed by Seán Crosson

Without films in Irish all the work done for the language in the schools, on the radio and by voluntary organizations is doomed to ultimate failure no matter how effectively it is done.1

When this statement was made in 1950 in a booklet entitled Films in Irish published by Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge (The National Conference for the Irish Language), few could have foreseen the developments subsequently in Irish-language filmmaking. While it would not be until the end of the decade that the first feature length film in Irish was made — the Gael Linn produced documentary Mise Éire (1959) (and almost twenty years further for the first feature length fiction film in Irish — Bob Quinn’s Poitín (1978)) — the past 11 years have seen an impressive increase in the output of Irish language television and filmmaking.

That progress notwithstanding, Irish language film and television has, to say the least, had an uneven and indeed precarious existence for much of the twentieth century. In many ways one can view the different contexts within which the Irish language has been used in various media — from radio though film and television — as reflecting wider policies regarding the use of Irish in Ireland in any given period, policies that met with limited success, evident in the lack of Irish spoken among the majority of Irish people today. Since independence, it has been the state that has been the primary financier of filmmaking in Irish either directly through its use in such government information films as Gnó Gach Éinne (Everybody’s Business, 1951) or Na Fiacla Sin Agat (Keep Your Teeth, 1951), or indirectly through the state supports given to Gael Linn, a crucial organisation in promoting the use of Irish in film throughout the 1950s and 1960s, most famously in its feature length documentary Mise Éire. As Jerry White has noted, Irish language films for much of the twentieth century were primarily in the Griersonian documentary mode “a socially orientated, non-commercial model for film, a model that was closely linked to strong government and national unity”.2 Significantly, it was the filmmaker with arguably the greatest influence on Grierson, Robert Flaherty, who directed the first sound film in Irish. The Irish government, through the Department of Education, sanctioned ₤200 to make the film Oíche Sheanchais (Night Of Storytelling, 1935), directed by Flaherty in London while in post-production on Man of Aran (1934). It is ironic that it is Flaherty we have to thank for directing this film, as Man of Aran, one of the first Irish set films to achieve international fame, is notable for the absence of the Irish language despite the fact that its cast is made up of largely non-English speaking Aran islanders. But such have been the paradoxes that have surrounded the promotion and use of Irish in Ireland over the past century.

2007 has been a year of considerable achievement for film and television in the Irish language, reflected in the recent announcement of the nominations for the Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTAs), with Irish language productions receiving over thirty nominations, including 14 alone for Tom Collins’ Kings.3 While both Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board (IFB) and TG4 continued to support provocative short work and drama, through the Oscailt and Lasair schemes, the release of two critically acclaimed Irish language films — the second being Robert Quinn’s Cré na Cille — marks a highpoint of production. A significant development is the level of interest been shown in Irish medium work by the general public, notwithstanding the modest performance of Kings at the Irish box office.

Robert Quinn’s adaptation of Máirtín Ó Cadhain’s Cré na Cille (Graveyard Clay) has proved to be an audience favourite at festivals from Galway to Shangai. [Reviewed by Gearóid Denvir elsewhere in this edition. Ed]. Set in a graveyard in Connamara, the narrative is structured around often quite confrontational and deprecating dialogues between corpses about the world, relations and neighbours overhead. Quinn is fortunate to have some of the finest Irish language speakers and actors at his disposal including the superb Bríd Ní Neachtain in the lead role of Caitríona Phaidín, ably supported by the entire cast. Yet credit is due to Quinn for the overall convincing manner in which he addresses the central conceit — that is that most of the film’s characters are already dead and speaking from beneath a graveyard in Connamara. Furthermore, there are great comedic moments included from the world above that are well realised. While one Irish language commentator has criticised some of the omissions from the original text,4 inevitably an adaptation of a work of over 360 pages .5. requires considerable truncation for less than 2 hours of film.

Yet Ó Cadhain’s works arguably lend themselves more easily than others might to dramatisation, drawing as they do frequently on Irish traditional oral forms like agallamh beirte and lúibíní. His writing has been adapted successfully previously as stage plays, including Macdara Ó Fátharta’s (who co-wrote with Quinn this year’s cinematic adaptation) stage adaptation of Cré na Cille, in which many of the actors in Quinn’s film performed.6 There is a competitive element to the encounters between characters in Quinn’s adaptation reminiscent of the traditional lúibíní, a form of Gaelic song where “two or more performers are set against each other or collaborate together in a bout of semi-spontaneous composition”.7 The richness of the language comes through in these clashes where one tries to outdo the other in insults – and the viewer is left in no doubt by the end of the richness and variety of insults and coarse words in Irish! Indeed, Quinn’s work is one of the most memorable released in 2007, not least because of the viscerality and richness of the language found in Ó Cadhain’s original and its superb realization by the actors in this production.

While few would have suspected that the much maligned Blasket Island’s writer Peig Sayers would provide material for contemporary drama, Daniel O’Hara has added to his previous successes (including the multi-award winning Irish-language shorts Yu Ming is Ainm Dom (2003) and Fluent Dysphasia (2004)) with the TV comedy mini-series Paddywhackery (TG4). The story concerns Paddy Woods, played by Paddy C. Courtney (who co-wrote the series with O’Hara) who on losing his job with Maxicorp, is inspired by the appearance of the ghost of Peig Sayers (Fionnula O’Flanagan) to turn to the Irish language to get the required grants to start his own business. Aided by Siobhán (Siobhán O'Kelly) — a native speaker from Connamara — he sets out to learn Irish and attempts several projects – including a race night, driving lessons and speed dating as Gaeilge, before settling on the translation and production of major musicals in Irish. While the narrative as a whole is somewhat stretched and uneven over the six episodes, there remain moments of real humour and not a little insight into the use of Irish in Ireland today, particularly its dependence on government subsidies. Along the way, O’Hara restores to Peig some of the personality she was renowned for as an extraordinary traditional storyteller rather than the depressing narrator of the eponymous book that became the bane of many a Leaving Certificate Irish student.

While Paddywhackery revealed the continuing development of Daniel O’Hara as a writer and director, Declan Recks, award-winning director of Pure Mule (2005) [see review in Estudios Irlandeses, Issue 2. Ed], was responsible this year for directing one of the finest drama series in any language on Irish television. The Running Mate (TG4), co-written by Marcus Fleming, Nicky Murphy and Mark Canton, was one of the most pointed critiques of the Irish political system and the considerable corruption that has damaged public confidence in recent years. It is significant that RTÉ rejected playwright Connor McPherson’s initial idea for the series some years ago, which at that time was to be set in Dublin and produced in English. TG4 has shown since its foundation that it is possible to tackle issues in Irish that other broadcasters have feared to engage with, including featuring the first gay kiss on Irish television, in Rós na Rún, TG4’s flagship drama serial, over ten years ago. Ruth Lysaght’s list of subject matter covered in episodes of this serial indicate the willingness of the station to engage with topics mainstream broadcasters have been hesitant to explore: “Exploding petrol pumps, rape, skullduggery, abortion, rural renewal, cot death, drink driving, planning corruption”.8

Set in the Kerry Gaeltacht, The Running Mate features local politician, Vincent Flynn (Dennis Conway), who has given his political life as a foot-soldier for Fianna Fáil mopping up votes as the running mate for the local corrupt TD, Paudie Counihan (Eamonn Hunt). Unable to take Counihan’s hypocrisy and condescension any longer, Flynn decides to run as an independent candidate when the government falls, assisted by his campaign manager, the alcoholic ex-schoolteacher, Willie Costello (Don Wycherley).  Family crises ensue, including an unwanted pregnancy and rumours of an affair, but through it all The Running Mate makes for gripping drama, despite a somewhat predictable and saccharine final episode. The fact that this is a bilingual programme (or “Breac Scannáin” as Fidelma Farley has described much Irish language drama in recent years),9 that engages in a pointed manner with issues pertinent to contemporary Ireland as a whole, and not just to the Gaeltacht, represents a considerable maturing in Irish-language drama not apparent in earlier periods.

In a seminar at the Huston School of Film in 2005, director Paul Mercier suggested that in the current climate there are primarily three areas in which filmmaking in the Irish language can be made with integrity. These were films set in the past, films set in the future or films that engaged with the challenges of the Irish speaker in Ireland today. Tom Collins’ Kings, moves outside such choices to explore another relevant area for engagement – the experience of the Irish speaker abroad. A poignant and at times deeply moving account of a reunion of a group of Connamara natives now living in London, Kings effectively utilizes the Irish language to accentuate the marginalized positions of the characters depicted, all of whom left Ireland in the 1970s with high hopes of success in London [see Eithne O’Connell’s review of Kings in this issue. Ed]. As was the case for many emigrants, few of these hopes were realised and while Joe Mullan (Colm Meaney) has managed to find some success with his own construction industry, Jap (Donal O’Kelly) and Git (Brendan Conroy) have been less fortunate. Unemployed, poor and living in dreadful conditions, they try to come to terms with their past and present while unsure, as in the case of their friend Jackie (Seán Ó Tarpaigh) who took his life, that there can be a future. One might ask what the purpose of Irish could be here, particularly when Jimmy Murphy’s play The Kings of the Kilburn High Road (2001) on which the film is based was produced entirely in English. Yet the use of the Irish language is not merely for colour or exoticism — it is a further level and element in the drama that depicts the struggles of each character, whether successful or not, to come to terms with their own existence, often on the margins of a foreign society.

Kings was the first primarily Irish-language drama to get a general release at the Irish box office in Ireland and also the first to be entered by the Irish Film and Television Academy in the ‘Best Foreign Language Film’ category for the Oscars. Though it failed to receive a nomination, nonetheless it has attained a North American theatrical deal with BFS Entertainment where its moving narrative, strong performances and the growing interest in the Irish language among the Irish-American community may help it find a significant audience.

It would be wrong, despite the considerable achievements this year, to ignore the formidable challenges that still exist. It was remarked to me by one of those involved in the production of Cré na Cille, for example, that if it had not been made this year, it would have been increasingly difficult for the work ever to have been successfully adapted as fluent speakers of the richly textured and complex Irish found in Ó Cadhain’s masterpiece become more difficult to find. Despite the success of Irish medium education (or Gaelscoileanna) in recent years, and the growing numbers of Irish people who claim to be able to speak the language,10 one of the ironies of the developments in Irish language film and television is that it is happening at a time when the language itself continues to decline in the primarily Irish speaking, or Gaeltacht, areas. A detailed report — Staidéar Cuimsitheach Teangeolaíoch ar Úsáid na Gaeilge sa Ghaeltacht (The Comprehensive Linguistic Study of the Use of Irish in the Gaeltacht) – published in October 2007 suggested that Irish may well fail to exist as a community language within 20 years if the decline in the use of the language, particularly among young people, in Gaeltacht areas is not arrested.11 Furthermore, the future of funding for Irish language productions is far from clear. In October 2007, Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board announced the discontinuation of the Oscailt scheme (responsible for funding almost thirty shorts in Irish since its inception in 1998) ostensibly because of concerns over the “ghettoisation” of Irish language shorts.12 While the Board also indicated that all five shorts schemes — Frameworks, Virtual Cinema, Reality Bites, Short Shorts and Signatures — will now be open to Irish language submissions, the failure of the Board to fund Cré na Cille does not inspire confidence in its commitment to productions in Irish. It is also unclear whether the Ciste Craoltóireachta Gaeilge (Irish Language Broadcast Fund) in Northern Ireland will continue beyond 2009 as the current DUP Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure in the Northern Ireland Assembly, Edwin Poots, has yet to announce any further funding and there are strong indications that no such funding may be forthcoming.13

Nonetheless there are hopeful signs, including the doubling of the funding (to €20,000) available under the Filmbase/TG4 Lasair scheme, through which some of the most successful recent work in Irish was produced, including Yu Ming is Ainm Dom. In addition, there are indications that Irish is becoming more integrated into the mainstream media. The title of this article derives from one of the most quoted recent advertisements on Irish television. Though primarily in Irish, it wasn’t just found on TG4, but rather featured in a popular advertisement for Danish beer, Carlsberg, carried on all Irish mainstream and cable channels, and in Irish cinemas in late 2007.14 While a skit on the use of the Irish language by many Irish people, often used more on trips abroad than in Ireland itself, the advertisement reflected the continuing growth in the use of Irish in the mainstream media and in film over the past ten years. While Irish speakers may rightly lament the nonsensical content, with the words and phrases used more a commentary on the limited knowledge of the language by the speaker than noteworthy in themselves, the fact that Irish was featured at all is significant. As Colm Ó Laoghaire, director of Gael Linn’s Amharc Éireann series, remarked in 1957 ‘[the newsreel’s] primary purpose is to encourage the public to accept Irish in the cinema as something normal and everyday (no more: not even to teach a few words)’.15  The use of Irish in this commercial, as well as other recent advertisements for Tayto crisps and Chef sauce, and the growth of the Irish language film and television sector, may just help contribute to its normalization in everyday life.

 Notes

1 Films in Irish, anonymous booklet published in 1950 by the Comhdháil Naisiúnta na Gaeilge quoted in Jerry White, “Translating Ireland back into Éire: Gael Linn and filmmaking in Irish”, Éire-Ireland, 38.1/2,

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FKX/is_1-2_38/ai_105439608/pg_1, (accessed January 10, 2008)

2 Jerry White, “Translating Ireland back into Éire: Gael Linn and filmmaking in Irish”, Éire-Ireland, 38.1/2,

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FKX/is_1-2_38/ai_105439608/pg_1, (accessed January 10, 2008)

3 Michael Dwyer, “Irish emigrant film receives 14 Ifta nominations”, Irish Times, Thursday, January 10, 2008, http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/0110/1199313758872_pf.html (accessed January 10, 2008)

4 Éilis Ní Anluain, “Díomá faoi chré mhearaí Quinn”, Irish Times, Wednesday, Mar 14, 2007,

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/anteangabheo/2007/0314/1173443115066_pf.html (accessed June 7, 2008).

5 Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Cré na Cille (Baile Átha Cliath: Sáirséal agus Dill, 1949).

6 RTÉ also adapted Ó Cadhain’s short story “An Taoille Tuile” as a TV play in the 1970s.

7 Gearóid Mac Lochlainn XE "Gearóid Mac Lochlainn" , Sruth Teangacha, Stream of Tongues (Indreabhán: Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 2002), p. 188.

8 Ruth Lysaght, “Ar Oscailt-New Openings. Short Films in the Irish Language Since the Advent of TG4”, The Representation of Ireland/S: Images from Outside and from Within, ed. by Rosa González (Barcelona: PPU, 2003), p. 147.

9 Fidelma Farley, “Breac Scannáin/Speckled Films: Genre and Irish-language Filmmaking”, Genre And Cinema: Ireland And Transnationalism, Brian McIlroy (ed.) (London: Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2007), pp. 163-176.

10 According to the most recent census figures there are more Irish speakers in Ireland today — 1, 656, 790 – than at any time since independence. However, it should be noted that these figures do not equate with fluency in the language, and are more representative of knowledge, or at least a sense of good-will towards it.             

[See http://beyond2020.cso.ie/Census/TableViewer/tableView.aspx?ReportId=10380 for more information on Irish speakers today.]

11 Acadamh Na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge, Ollscoil Na hÉireann, Gaillimh, Staidéar Cuimsitheach Teangeolaíoch ar Úsáid na Gaeilge sa Ghaeltacht (2007), l. 356. Seán Tadhg Ó Gairbhí agus Áine Ní Chiaráin, “Droim láimhe do phríomhmholadh”, Foinse, Dé Sathairn, 2 Samhain, 2007, l. 1.

12 Niamh Creely, “Schemers”, Film Ireland, 119 (November/December 2007): 16.

13 Concubhar Ó Liatháin, “Post na náire faoi Chiste” Lá Nua, Dé Céadaoin, 23 Eanáir, 2008, l. 1.

14 The commercial is available to view on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTNBmFveq2U.

15 Quoted in Harvey O’Brien, The Real Ireland: the evolution of Ireland in documentary film (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), p. 335.

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Cré na Cille (2007)

Reviewed by Gearóid Denvir

Máirtín Ó Cadhain (1906-1970), the Irish language writer from the Connemara Gaeltacht, was one of the dominant literary and intellectual personalities of his time in Ireland. Had he written in English, or had he translated his work, he would certainly be spoken of today in the same terms as Yeats, Joyce, Synge, Friel, Heaney and other canonical Irish writers in English. As is obvious from all his published work, both creative and discursive, Ó Cadhain’s Gaeltacht origins deeply influenced his philosophy of life and worldview. His Connemara was no land of fairytale and legend, no Tír na nÓg, no place where comely maidens and sturdy youths dance at the crossroads. His novel Cré na Cille, published in 1949, is significantly more modernist in tone and outlook than his earlier traditionalist work. Situated in his own ‘local organic community’ it announced the arrival of Ó Cadhain as a major writer whose work would be read and discussed as long as literature in Irish continues to exist.

The narrative of Cré na Cille is shaped by an audaciously original conceit; a series of monologues, dialogues and conversations amongst the underground ‘un-dead’ of a Connemara graveyard including the newly-buried Caitríona Pháidín. As various new corpses arrive, the story unfolds of Caitríona’s lifelong hatred of, and bitter conflict with her sister Neil, and of her unending, and ultimately futile, battle to outdo her.

The book is an acerbic, satiric and darkly comic depiction of some of the rather less pleasant side of human nature told with earthy, Rabelaisian humour. Ó Cadhain’s portrayal of Caitríona Pháidín runs contrary to the idealised construct of Irish womanhood common to his time and his vision of society is greatly removed from the image of rural Ireland that emerges from the work of most of the traditionalist Irish-language writers of his time. It has more in common with the work of writers like John B. Keane (notably in The Field) and Patrick Kavanagh (whose Tarry Flynn Ó Cadhain reviewed favourably in 1949, the same year Cré na Cille was published).

Since its publication, Cré na Cille has succeeded in crossing the borders of literary and artistic genre and its popularity has not been confined to the written word. The spoken medium was most apposite, especially in the light of the novel’s roots in the oral tradition. As with the manuscript tradition in earlier times in Ireland, the book was read aloud in many houses in the Connemara and Aran Gaeltacht after its publication in 1949 and Raidió na Gaeltachta broadcast it as a very successful serial drama in 1973 (recently re-issued in CD form by Cló Iar-Chonnachta). A stage version was produced in 2002 and 2006 by Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe, both of which sold out — an unusual occurrence for an Irish language play. The Kerry artist Pádraig Ó Mathúna has also painted a series of haunting pictures which recreate vividly the atmosphere of the graveyard and depict eerily its ghostlike inhabitants and which can be viewed in Áras na Gaeilge at NUI, Galway. And now, finally, Robert Quinn has brought this most verbal of works to the screen.

Ó Cadhain’s greatest success in the novel is perhaps the richness and scope of the language of the book which, while based on what he calls the ‘earthy, racy, polished’ speech of his own dialect, is far removed from what earlier writers called the ‘speech of the people’ in a literary context. All that the inhabitants of the graveyard have at their disposal is their speech; the power of the spoken word as a means of both self-revelation and self-protection. Moreover, much of what they have to say is but talk for talk’s sake, as if they are constructing a wall of words around themselves as a form of protection against loneliness and aloneness. All the characters return to the same issues and statements again and again throughout the novel: Caitríona talks constantly of Neil and of her own desire for a cross of island greenstone to mark her grave; An Máistir Mór, the local schoolmaster, talks of nothing else but his young widow’s betrayal of him when she married the local postman, Bileacha an Phosta; Nóra Sheáinín, the uneducated mother of the wife of Caitríona’s son, babbles continually about matters of culture and literature.

This use of language is a fundamental part of the comic and satiric import of the novel (successfully transported to the film, as we shall see) and is grounded firmly in the Irish comic tradition from earlier texts such as Fled Bricrenn, Aisling Meic Conglinne, Parlaimint Clainne Tomáis, down as far as Cúirt an Mheon-Oíche, the comic Rabelaisian court poem by Brian Merriman in the 18^th Century, and on into Ó Cadhain’s inherited oral tradition in the Connemara Gaeltacht.

The musicality of the language, the accumulated power of the words themselves, and the bombastic, argumentative style of the novel (again successfully recreated in the film) carry the narrative forward as if in a headlong rush. There is no need to understand every word in the strictly semantic sense as the language also functions at what might be called the level of sound symbolism. Cré na Cille does not seek to convince the reader/listener/viewer on an intellectual or conceptual level. Its import is on an emotional, primordial, mantraic, almost sublingual level, as with music, for example, or incantation. The power of language and argument overcomes any reasoned or reasonable approach in an almost ceremonial manner, particularly when the likes of Caitríona or An Máistir Mór let loose with a vituperative tirade of personalized abuse.

The film adaptation of Cré na Cille was produced by ROSG, a Connemara based production company, and directed by Robert Quinn, son of film-maker Bob Quinn. The film was shot in 2006 as one of a series of events to commemorate the 100^th anniversary of Ó’Cadhain’s birth. In early 2007 it made the final 16 (from among hundreds of entries) at the Shanghai International Festival and was shortlisted for the Best Feature Award at the Magners Irish Film Festival in Boston. It was broadcast nationally on TG4 on St. Stephen’s Day 2007 and is scheduled to be screened at festivals in Montreal and Tokyo in 2008.

The film version of Cré na Cille is far removed from the inane, homogenised mid-Atlantic idiom of much of latter-day Irish cinema and even further from the quasi-Syngian view of rural Ireland with its folksy, stage-Irish kitchen drama. Given its subject matter, the film could easily have descended into some unreconstructed Kiltartan, a read on the world at a considerable remove from the worldview of Ó Cadhain’s original novel and most of his other works. Despite the fact that the opening wake scene, with its merry fiddlers and de rigueur rendition of the classic ‘Amhrán Mhuínse’ flies somewhat close to that particular wind (in a manner redolent of scenes from the film version of The Field), Robert Quinn’s sure-handed direction ensures that Cré na Cille does not meet Kiltartan.

The script, by Mac Dara Ó Fatharta (who also adapted the novel for the stage) and Quinn, was developed in a manner faithful to the aims and scope of the original novel and reworked successfully to enable the transfer from the written/oral to the visual/oral. The film has, of necessity, lost some fundamental elements of the original: the mysterious god-like voice of Stoc na Cille does not feature; the background choir of voices is not heard commenting on the affairs of the graveyard; and the versified parts of the original are not included. However, the film remains true in the main to the original storyline and overall message of the novel, while at the same time successfully making the genre leap from page to screen to produce what is undoubtedly one of the best — perhaps even the best — film ever made in the Irish language.

This was no easy cinematic challenge — to translate what is essentially a drama for voice into a visual medium. The well-known writer and critic, Alan Titley, stated in jest in 1981 that it would take a very creative Swedish director to produce a film of Cré na Cille. Lo and behold, we now have a full-length 94 minute feature film based on the novel – and not a Swedish director in sight! Much of the credit for the significant artistic success of the film must go to Robert Quinn – indeed, it would be difficult to imagine another Irish director who could bring to the project the same cinematic creativity and intuitive understanding of the work of Máirtín Ó Cadhain and the world from which it grew. The principle difference between the novel and the film is the introduction of scenes from the real world above ground. In the novel these incidents are recounted by characters during monologues or conversations with other corpses in the graveyard. The film visually reconstructs and re-imagines these scenes while at the same time retaining the actual speech of the characters verbatim from the novel, thus retaining the linguistic authenticity of the original. The opening scene, the death and wake of Caitríona Pháidín, is one such re-imagined episode and sets the tone and parameters for the remainder of the ‘life’ — as opposed to ‘death’ — scenes.

This re-imagining of these scenes above ground leads directly to one of the most striking creative achievements of the film which is the wonderful contrast of light between the lively, light filled, colour scenes of authentic Connemara life of the 1920s and 1930s, as against the dark, stark, black and white world of the subterranean graveyard. This contrast is further accentuated through the many wide-lens action shots above ground which are constantly juxtaposed with the close-up, almost portrait-like shots with constrained movement in most of the underground scenes.

Language both as a medium of communication (or lack thereof at times) and of public self-declamation is a fundamental part of the novel Cré na Cille. Therefore, it was of the utmost importance that the cast of the film be totally comfortable with and in the language of the script. Unfortunately, one of the main criticisms of many stage and film productions in Irish over the years has been the lack of a comfortable command of the language among many actors which leads quite often to almost unintelligible utterances on stage and screen, and often to the utter embarrassment and confusion of audiences if not of the actors themselves. The film version, however, remains true to the linguistic creativity and richness (some would even say difficulty) of the original novel and bravely does not attempt to make compromises towards language learners or second-language Irish speakers with a non-native language competence. This is no mere tokenistic exercise. It is worth noting, in this context, that the English subtitles are sufficient unto their task without descending into Hiberno-English. The present reviewer, and I am sure many others among us whose language of first choice is Irish, would hope that a version with optional subtitles might become available when the film is released on DVD.

Robert Quinn and producer Ciarán Ó Cofaigh consciously and successfully avoided this fundamental linguistic pitfall and succeeded in casting the best acting talent available. Without any shadow of a doubt, not to have done so would have scuttled the integrity of the entire project from the outset. Most of the cast of Cré na Cille have served long and fruitful apprenticeships both on stage and, in latter years, in the Irish language TV and film sector which has blossomed since the establishment of TG4 (originally TnaG) in 1996. They are all, without a single exception, completely at ease in their acting and linguistic ability to deliver their roles successfully to the highest of standards. Most of the main actors also played in the above-mentioned productions by Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe, from which the original concept for the present film version of the novel emerged in the Ó Cadhain commemorative year.

Bríd Ní Neachtain is frighteningly unforgettable in the main role of Caitríona Pháidín, as she was in the original stage version. Her darkly comic, cantankerous presence, and in particular her piercing eyes, dominate the film just as Caitríona Pháidín dominated all those around her in her life above ground and in the graveyard. Peadar Lamb as An Máistir Mór also delivers a virtuoso performance — his ritualistic, incantatory declamation against his wife when he discovers that she has married Bileachaí an Phosta (Seán Ó Coisdealbha) is a particular tour de force similar to a poetic malediction from older times, just as Ó Cadhain himself intended. Mac Dara Ó Fatharta (Beairtle Chois Dubh), Joe Steve Ó Neachtain (Tom Rua) and Diarmuid Mac an Adhastair (Tomás Taobh Istigh) also deliver strong, convincing performances, particularly in bringing the comic element in the film to the fore. Moreover, all of the “minor” or walk-on characters (such as the un-named gravedigger and the keen-woman, Bid Shorcha) are perceptively cast and provide the small, authentic, background detail which underpins and validates the entire film.

Cré na Cille was delivered on an incredibly low budget of €1.1 million. The project was co-funded by TG4 and the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland with support from the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. Shamefully, Bord Scannán na hÉireann/Irish Film Board refused to support the project at any stage despite its obvious artistic and cultural significance and the track record of its participants — an indictment, perhaps, of the Anglo-centric or mid-Atlantic philosophy that drives that same august body! Ó Cadhain’s novel grew out of an inherited, communal, oral tradition allied to his own firm grounding in and understanding of modern literature and thought. With the demise of reading, or what might be termed the death of the book in a digital society, in particular in the case of lesser-used or minority languages such as Irish, Cré na Cille has now been in a sense returned to its roots, albeit through the convoluted post-modern process of re-mediation through the medium of film. If Ó’Cadhain is not being read, he shall at least be heard and seen! He himself would, I believe, be content, as would the ethereal Stoc na Cille who proclaimed constantly throughout the novel, ‘Éistear le mo ghlór! Caithfear éisteacht!’, ‘Listen to my voice! You must listen!’

Cré na Cille (Irl, 2007)

Director/Stiúrthóir: Robert Quinn

Producer/Léiritheoir: Ciarán Ó Cofaigh

Writers/Scríbhneoirí: Macdara Ó Fatharta, Robert Quinn

Cast/Cliar: Bríd Ní Neachtain, Peadar Lamb, Macdara Ó Fatharta, Máire Ní Mháille, Joe Steve Ó Neachtain, Diarmuid Mac an Adhastair, Máire Uí Dhroighneáin, Tom Sailí Ó Flaithearta, Peadar Ó Treasaigh, Máirín Uí Neachtain, Darach Ó Dubháin, Seán Ó Coisdealbha.

Director of Photography/Stiúrthóir Grianghrafadóireachta: Tim Fleming

Designer/Dearthóir: Dara McGee

Music Composer and Arranger/Ceol cumtha agus cóirithe ag: Jim Lockhart

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