Ireland: Behind the Wire

An Blascaod Mór, Great Blasket Island, is an islet off the southwest coast of the Irish mainland. For years, a declining population and treacherous waters had made life there risky. In 1953, the Irish government evacuated the 22 remaining residents of An Blascaod Mór to the nearby village of Dún Chaoin. This documentary examines aspects of the island's history and literary legacy, and features interviews with former islanders.

Take a cross-country flight over Ireland's natural wonders and ancient ruins. In this spectacular overview of the historically significant Emerald Isle, we soar over Neolithic tombs of the Celtic era, medieval castles of the Vikings, and modern cities humming with life. From the tower that inspired a novelist to the ancestral home of a famous stout, we explore the sites, the people, and the milestones of this unique gem of Western Europe.

Ornithologist Seán Ronayne from Cobh, Co. Cork is on a mission to record the sound of every bird species in Ireland – that’s nearly 200 birds. Often joined by his partner Alba, he travels to some of the country’s most beautiful and remote locations to capture its most elusive species and soundscapes: the busy seabird colony of Skellig Michael; a native woodland free from road noise in the Burren; the corncrake stronghold of Tory Island; a solitary nest in the Donegal uplands. Along the way we get to know Seán, whose hypersensitivity to sound has proven both a struggle and a strength. At once inspiring and cautionary, Seán’s journey illustrates the beauty and importance of sound, and what listening can tell us about the state of our natural world.

Presenter Holly Hamilton tells the feelgood story of the Glentoran team who left Belfast on a European football adventure just before the First World War to win the Vienna Cup, the first ever European Cup.

Since the beginning of her career, Sinéad O’Connor has used her powerful voice to challenge the narratives she was surrounded by while growing up in predominantly Roman Catholic Ireland. Despite her agency, depth and perspective, O’Connor’s unflinching refusal to conform means that she has often been patronized and unfairly dismissed as an attention-seeking pop star.

Over fourteen days in March 1988, a sequence of traumatic events shook Northern Ireland to its core and shocked the world. But it was also 14 days that compelled one man, Redemptorist priest Fr Alec Reid, to find a way out of the deadly cycle of violence.

A eulogy to the greatest institution in Irish society, the pub, or more specifically the traditional Irish publicans who run them. Speaking to pub owners all over Ireland, Alex Fegan gets into the heart of what makes "the Irish pub" the institution that it is.

The testimony of the men who unwittingly became war photographers on the streets of their own towns in Northern Ireland, when violence erupted around them. Instead of photographing weddings and celebrities, as they expected, they produced the images that crudely show the suffering of ordinary people between 1968 and 1998, the worst years of the conflict.

The story of Father Alec Reid’s complex and controversial peace plan to bring an end to violence in Northern Ireland, which eventually led to the historic Good Friday Agreement.

The tragic and shocking story of the notorious Magdalene Laundries, a shameful system, created by the Irish State but supported by all strata of Irish society, which enslaved more than ten thousand women between 1922 and 1996.

This feature-length documentary investigates the role the British government played in the murder of over 120 civilians in Counties Armagh and Tyrone from July 1972 to 1978.

Exclusive two-disc film documenting the British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa in the summer of 1997. The unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to the team shows the preparations, the training, the fun, the team selection, the 'earthy' language, the bonding, the awesome task of playing and some shocking footage of injuries. Despite securing the series with wins in the first two tests, the Lions remained motivated by the prospect of a 3-0 whitewash, a feat never achieved against the Springboks throughout the century.

This documentary reunites director Peter Lennon and cinematographer Raoul Coutard, who recount the making of their then controversial but now classic documentary on Ireland in the Sixties. Rocky Road to Dublin was screened for only a few weeks at a single Dublin theatre.

The painful story of Ireland and the Irish people, who struggled for centuries to free themselves from the tyrannical clutches of the British Empire; an epic tale of poverty, hunger, despair, violence and unyielding courage.

The women of Belfast played a unique role in holding together their families and communities during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Filmed during the fragile 17-month paramilitary cease-fire, Daughters of the Troubles: Belfast Stories looks at the challenges facing women trying to put their direct experience of grassroots problems on the agenda of the established political parties. Their strength, first exhibited on the community level, started to reach a wider public.

The story of the Northern Ireland Troubles through the unflinching testimony of two men who played key roles on opposite sides of that bloody conflict. Nearly ten years ago the two paramilitary leaders told their stories on condition that they could never be revealed while they were still alive. The stories told by the Irish Republican Army's Brendan Hughes and Ulster Volunteer Force's David Ervine tell us of the motivations of the participants, the planning of campaigns of violence, the misery of a hunger strike, the tracking and killing of informers and the duplicity that ended a conflict that had lasted too long. It is also a narrative of the fate of combatants when their wars are over.

Chapter and Verse is an experimental documentary that traces the image legacy of Northern Ireland's recent troubles via its contemporary landscapes. The camera roves with fierce curiosity amongst the Orange Order Parades, the raging 11th Night Bonfires of Belfast, the wall paintings of Londonderry, empty border-lands, murder-sites, cemeteries, home interiors, town and city streets whilst exploring how the troubles are both revealed and concealed by the Northern Irish landscape. Interviews with a mix of Northern Irish politicians, religious figures and victims of the troubles, including Rev. Ian Paisley and Bishop Emeritus of 'Derry Edward Daly, combine in a cinematic study of the complex effects of Northern Ireland's conflict history suspended in language.

Produced by MUBI, The Rising of the Moon is a video essay which explores the struggle for independence as it has been portrayed throughout the history of Irish cinema, from the rebellion of 1798 through to the 1920s war of independence and the Troubles in Northern Ireland. https://vimeo.com/473986546

A documentary on the life of the people of the Aran Islands, who were believed to contain the essence of the ancient Irish life, represented by a pure uncorrupted peasant existence centred around the struggle between man and his hostile but magnificent surroundings. A blend of documentary and fictional narrative, the film captures the everyday trials of life on Ireland's unforgiving Aran Islands.

Ireland's history is steeped in religion and mystery. Why did its people stop worshipping the earth 5,000 years ago? Did St. Patrick really act alone in converting the Irish to Christianity in the 5th century? Historians, astronomers, and other scientists believe answers to these and other questions lie in the stars. Discover the role that celestial occurrences have played in Irish religious beliefs and practices as we explore ancient hallowed sites and even the heavens above.