In the opening scenes of John Michael McDonagh’s rather violent drama (that I perversely still insist of calling a black comedy despite its tragic ending), we see a Priest taking confession from an unseen man. “I first tasted semen when I was 7 years old’ are the first words out of his mouth and then … Continue reading
When John is not goofing off with his best friend Shane, he is driving his taxi around some of the more seedier downtrodden neighborhoods on the fringes of Dublin looking for fares. Pickings are slim and he pleads with his boss to give him more shifts to make ends meet. He needs the money to … Continue reading
Jimmy Gralton returned to his native Ireland in 1932 when a new Government led by Eammon de Valera took office and at last promised peace after ‘the troubles’. Gralton’s eldest brother had recently died and his elderly mother was left trying to scrape a living off the poor infertile land on the Farm that the … Continue reading
Despite the title, life hardly seems like a breeze for three generations of this Irish family who live hand to mouth in a Dublin suburb. The matriarch Nan is a bit of a hoarder so the rest of the family devise a plan to get her out of her House one day so that they can … Continue reading
Headfort the delightful rambling boarding school in the heart of the countryside 50 miles outside of Dublin, is the sort of educational establishment most of us would have given our right arms to spend our childhoods in. The cameras spend a year there for this affectionate portrait by Irish documentarian Nease Ni Chianain which for … Continue reading