Irish Repertory Theatre

Irish Drama.
New York Style.

Film

PAST EVENT — Film Screening: The Quiet Girl and An Irish Goodbye

in the W. Scott McLucas Studio Theatre

November 4, 2023 at 2:00pm

While Brian Friel’s Translations tells the story of British colonialism’s efforts to suppress Irish culture, it is our pleasure to present a film in the Irish language that survived.

Join us after the screening for a talkback with Irish Language expert Caoimhe Nic Giollarnáith.

The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin) is an Oscar-nominated multi-award-winning Irish Language film, written/directed by Colm Bairéad, based on Foster by Claire Keegan (Small Things like These).

Cáit is a nine-year-old girl from an over-crowded, dysfunctional and impoverished family. Quietly struggling at school and at home, she has learnt to hide in plain sight from those around her. As summer arrives and her pregnant mother’s due date approaches, Cáit (Catherine Clinch) is sent to live with distant relatives. Without knowing when she will return home, she is left at the strangers’ house with only the clothes she is wearing. The Kinsellas, a middle-aged couple she has never met, dress the girl in what clothes they have.

They are farming people, like her own, but hard-working and wanting for nothing, it seems. Despite a warm reception from the woman, Eibhlín (Carrie Crowley), the man of the house, Seán (Andrew Bennett), keeps his distance from Cáit and she from him, but over time, their strained relationship begins to deepen. Slowly, in the care of the Kinsellas, Cáit blossoms and discovers a new way of living. But in this house where affection grows and there are meant to be no secrets, she discovers one painful truth.

An Irish Goodbye

An Irish Goodbye is a 2022 short film written, produced, and directed by Tom Berkeley and Ross White. The film stars James Martin, Seamus O’Hara, Paddy Jenkins and Michelle Fairley.

Winner of the 2023 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.

Set against the backdrop of a working farm in rural Northern Ireland, An Irish Goodbye is a black comedy following the reunion of estranged brothers Turlough and Lorcan following the untimely death of their mother. Under the watchful eye of odd-ball parish priest Father O’Shea, the brothers’ pained reunion is worsened by the fact Turlough must now make new care arrangements for Lorcan, who has Down Syndrome. A robust and dedicated farmer, Lorcan’s dream of continuing to work the land he grew up on is thwarted when Turlough decides he’s sending him to live with their Aunt on the other side of Ireland. But when the brothers discover an unfulfilled bucket list belonging to their late mother, Lorcan senses an opportunity: he’ll only agree to leave the farm once he and Turlough have themselves completed every single wish on their mother’s list… … all one-hundred of them.

This screening is presented in association with the Irish Film Institute’s IFI International programme, supported by Culture Ireland, and distributors Super Ltd and Network Ireland Television.

Film Screening: Juno and the Paycock (1930)

The W. Scott McLucas Studio Theatre

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Adapted by Alma Reville and Alfred Hitchcock from Sean O’Casey’s play Juno and the Paycock

Starring Barry Fitzgerald, Maire O’Neill, Edward Chapman, and Sara Allgood

Thursday, April 11 at 7pm
Friday, April 12 at 8pm

This rarely-screened early Hitchcock film, his second “talkie,” is a mostly faithful adaptation of Sean O’Casey’s popular play Juno and the Paycock, including an additional scene that Alfred Hitchcock convinced O’Casey to allow him to add. The film cast features performances from several of the original Abbey Theatre cast members, including Sara Allgood as Juno Boyle.

Although the film was a hit when it premiered in 1930, this early film is generally considered a failure by film buffs due to its strict adherence to the original play, often attributed to Hitchcock’s youth and inexperience, along with O’Casey’s stubborn refusal to allow significant adaptation. However, the two men left an impression on each other and continued to meet occasionally about future projects that never materialized.  Hitchcock scholars often name Sean O’Casey as the inspiration for the prophet of doom in the diner scene in The Birds (1963).

Juno and the Paycock synopsis:
Jack Boyle is out of work and determined to stay that way. He postures and drinks with his sidekick Joxer while his long-suffering wife Juno struggles to support their family and maintain their dilapidated tenement flat. Their son Johnny, crippled fighting in the revolution, cowers indoors to avoid the bitter new civil war, while his sister Mary considers her options for the future. When a handsome visitor arrives with news of an inheritance, the family begins to plan their new life, but their apparent salvation soon reveals itself to be the cause of their ruin. One of the great plays of the twentieth century, Juno and the Paycock is a devastating portrait of wasted potential in a Dublin torn apart by the chaos of the Irish Civil War.

Tickets to this screening are available now for $15 ($10 for Irish Rep Members & O’Casey Cycle Subscribers).

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Film Screening:
The Plough and the Stars (1937)

The W. Scott McLucas Studio Theatre

Written by Sean O’Casey
Directed by John Ford

Starring Barbara Stanwick, Preston Foster, Barry Fitzgerald, and members of the original Abbey Theatre cast of The Plough and the Stars

Just ten years after The Abbey Theatre’s premiere of The Plough and the Stars incited riots in Dublin, renowned Hollywood director John Ford adapted the play for a much anticipated film. He planned to cast it with the actors from the original stage production, but his studio (RKO) insisted that he hire known American actors for the leads. He was ultimately able to hire five actors from the original production including Barry Fitzgerald, who would go on to have a long career in film. During editing, O’Casey’s political opinions caused problems once again as RKO objected to the overt politics in the film and interjected, reshooting several scenes against Ford’s wishes with another Director.

The Plough and the Stars Plot Description:
Pretty young newlywed Nora Clitheroe is the talk of her tenement as she tirelessly works to lift her family out of their impoverished circumstances. She tries to keep her husband Jack from the revolutionary fervor sweeping through Dublin. But Jack becomes a Commandant in the Irish Citizen Army, and when the Easter Rising of 1916 begins, he leaves a pregnant Nora to help lead the fight. The disparate, quarrelsome tenement residents are forced to shelter together as urban warfare makes their home nearly as treacherous as the streets. Passions and ideals rise and converge, but in the end, loss and devastation triumph over the promise of a new Ireland.

Don’t miss our live production of The Plough and the Stars beginning on Saturday, April 20 on the Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage. Learn more.

Tickets to this screening are available now for $15 ($10 for Irish Rep Members & O’Casey Cycle Subscribers).

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Film Screening: Young Cassidy (1965)

The W. Scott McLucas Studio Theatre

Screenplay by John Whiting
Based on Mirror in My House, an autobiography by Sean O’Casey
Directed by Jack Cardiff and John Ford

Starring Rod Taylor, Julie Christie, and Maggie Smith

Thursday, March 14 at 7pm
Friday, March 15 at 8pm

Inspired by Sean O’Casey’s autobiography of his early life in Dublin, this film follows Johnny Cassidy (Rod Taylor) as he grows up and begins to identify as a socialist in Dublin in 1911, a time period that would come to define the themes of his work. He gets swept into the nationalist cause, joins the labor movement and goes on strike, and starts a relationship with a prostitute named Daisy Battles (Julie Christie). When O’Casey meets bookshop assistant Nora (Maggie Smith), she helps him find his path in the theater as a playwright.

Tickets to this screening are available now for $15 ($10 for Irish Rep Members & O’Casey Cycle Subscribers).

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Kennedy’s Cadets

A documentary screening + Q & A

Presented in partnership with the New York Irish Center

The Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage

Directed by Geraldine Heffernan
Produced by NemetonTV for TG4

Q&A with Lieutenant Martin Dockery (retd. – ‘The Old Guard Regiment’ of Fort Myer), Paula Uí Uallacháin, Colonel William Nott (retd.), and Lieutenant Colonel Micheal McGrath (retd.)

Monday, November 19, 2018 at 7pm

In the summer of 1963, during John F. Kennedy’s historic visit to Ireland, he was fascinated by the Irish Cadets and their dignified drills. JFK requested a film reel of these drills to be sent to the White House. When tragedy struck on November 22nd of the same year, Jacqueline Kennedy personally requested that the drill be performed at the burial of her late husband. The young Irish Cadets were bundled on to a plane and told very little about their mission.

Kennedy’s Cadets tells the extraordinary story of this group of Irish teenagers, who in the space of 48 hours found themselves catapulted to the forefront of the world’s media, standing beside the grave of the most powerful man in the western world.

In a truly emotional epilogue to the story, in 2008, three of the members of that cadet class returned to the gravesite where they stood with their classmates 45 years ago. At that time, TG4 commissioned Nemeton TV to produce a bi-lingual documentary – Kennedy’s Cadets.

The New York Irish Center and Irish Repertory Theater are proud share this documentary with a New York audience this November, marking 55 years since the assassination of President Kennedy. After the screening, there will be a Q & A with researcher Paula Uí Uallacháin, Lieutenant Martin Dockery (retd. ‘The Old Guard Regiment’ of Fort Myer, who hosted the young Cadets, and two of the original Cadets: Colonel William Nott (retd.), and Lieutenant Colonel Micheal McGrath (retd.)

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Atlantic Salmon – Lost At Sea

Narrated by Gabriel Byrne

November 6, 2017 at 7pm

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Lost at Sea takes the viewer on an epic journey through the oceanic kingdom of the Atlantic Salmon – king of fish – in an attempt to unravel the mystery of their life at sea. Populations of salmon are plummeting to critical levels, even going extinct in some southern rivers. Despite conservation efforts worldwide, populations continue to fall. The cause is mortality at sea. For the very first time, using the latest DNA technology, scientists are able to track the salmon from the rivers, through the estuaries and into the vast North Atlantic and back again in hopes of finding an answer before it is too late.

Following the screening of Lost at Sea, there will be a talkback discussion on the making of the film with producer Deirdre Brennan and wine & cheese reception.


Reception sponsored by the Consulate General of Ireland.

Irish Research Vessel: Celtic Explorer

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