Michael Moynihan: Every corner of the country should be celebrated on screen

Gemma Dunleavy at the gala preview screening of ‘North Circular’ at the Savoy Cinema, Dublin.

A friend of this column carries a devastating putdown around in his back pocket, one that can bring pain to quite a few self-important characters. It’s particularly useful when it comes to describing a closed environment in which hierarchies fall and rise, usually at the whim of self-appointed arbiters.

Is that a bit too vague? His one-liner — the scene that celebrates itself — sums up and vaporises the incestuous groupings you know well from your time in school, in work, in college — anywhere, basically there are one or two gathered together.

(Usually gathered to assert their superiority over one or two others, which is the entire point.) Anyway. I confess that line was my first thought when I heard about a couple of films appearing on the circuit in the capital.

In the capital, about the capital, and of the capital.

The first is Ghosts of Baggotonia. According to the programme notes I see online, this is “... an evocative film-poem exploring the literary and other ghosts of the bohemian quarter bordering Dublin’s Baggot Street during the mid-20th century where there was a radical flourishing of artistic and intellectual activity ... Alan Gilsenan’s richly evocative work draws on the writings of Patrick Kavanagh, Samuel Beckett, Flann O’Brien, and Brendan Behan, among others, to conjure a psycho-geographic tapestry of place and memory.”

There was a screening a couple of weeks ago in the Irish Film Institute which was to be followed by a
Q&A session with poet Seán Hewitt and director Gilsenan.

That screening came a week after another film popped up at the IFI. North Circular, directed by Luke McManus, is described in the IFI notes as a “... musical odyssey travelling the length of Dublin’s North Circular Road, from the Phoenix Park to Dublin Port, (which) explores the history, music and residents of this richly storied street ... the battle to save the legendary Cobblestone Pub, and in the celebrations for Kellie Harrington’s homecoming.

“There is shadow and light in the musical vignettes from John Francis Flynn, Séan Ó Túama, Eoghan O’Ceannabháin, Ian Lynch and Gemma Dunleavy.” That screening was followed by a discussion presented in association with Grangegorman Histories and the Royal Irish Academy, with Luke himself, Catriona Crowe, Professor Brendan Kelly, and Professor Paul Rouse, who will be well-known to Irish Examiner readers for his terrific column in the sports pages.

Gemma Dunleavy from Sheriff Street, Dublin, who stars in 'North Circular',  with Garda Aine Redmond and Garda Ian Walsh at The Savoy Cinema, O'Connell Street, Dublin. Picture: Brian McEvoy

Living in Dublin for nearly a decade gave me a great fondness for the place, even if that grá is — er — somewhat at odds with the perception of the capital at times in my home place.

(A top Cork comment showing dismissive antipathy towards Dublin means picking from a very crowded field, though I incline to a late uncle’s confession that he hadn’t been to Dublin “since the All-Ireland semi-final”. Twenty-four years before.) With or without that fondness, though, is this a bit ... much? I have to confess, of course, that I have seen neither film yet, but this entire discussion is not a comment on their quality. I’m aware of the work of the two directors involved: in Alan Gilsenan’s back catalogue you can find the great documentary about Liam Clancy, The Yellow Bittern; Luke McManus made a terrific film about Arkle some years back which is well worth checking out. The portents are good in terms of the quality likely to be on show.

Furthermore, I have a strong interest myself in local history and had a hugely enjoyable chat with Donal Fallon, doyen of Dublin historians, recently. With local history, the smaller the small print the better.

Also, I acknowledge the difference between these two films even in outline. Going by the programme notes, for instance, the former is a poetic account of a particular neighbourhood at a particular time when artists and writers hung out there.

That is not automatically a recommendation for the rest of us, of course. I don’t know if the film includes Brendan Behan’s fairly laboured jest about Inchicore residents disliking bohemians — a convoluted League of Ireland joke — but as a tribe the latter can certainly be an acquired taste. I can’t remember the identity of The Late Late Show guest many years ago who could recall Patrick Kavanagh — one of the leading lights of that Baggot Street scene — in a bookshop one morning, dry-shaving as he stood between the shelves.

The North Circular Road, by contrast, is a bustling thoroughfare and always has been, with a teeming liveliness the trailer certainly captures. It’s very different to the Baggot Street quarter, and in fairness, that point should be made: these are different films about different areas.

It’s convenient that they encompass both ends of the documentary spectrum — one with raucous street life bursting with energy, the other moody, elegiac — but for this observer, the takeaway is that here we have the capital celebrating itself. If you find that acceptable, good: I have a proposal for you.

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Spectres of Blackpoolia. (Or Blackponia: the title’s being workshopped.) Programme notes for the first proposed screening: here is the true bohemian quarter of old Cork, the enclave north of the river which has always held its ghosts. Here Walloo Dunlea nods across Thomas Davis Street at Rory Gallagher, who is coming out of the Pantry on his way up to the Mon. He passes Frank O’Connor going the other way, making it hard for the Fever Hospital Steps to get home and start scribbling. As he does so, he looks right through Madden’s Buildings and sees long-haired James Barry, blinking and paint-spattered. O’Connor doesn’t look too long: Barry is notoriously belligerent.

From an upstairs bedroom, Mac Curtain looks down, forever waiting for the gang of killers to arrive in from King Street, and takes in the Bride gurgling softly by the church — (note: alternative title, Bride’s Head Revisited?) — as the beet lorries roll past on their way to Dublin Hill and Mallow beyond.

(Further note: ring Theo Dorgan to ask if he’s cool with his poem being raided.) Anyway, you get the idea. Funding accepted. Suggestions accepted. Grudgingly.

On reflection, maybe I’m a little harsh on Dublin’s sense of its own importance. Fair dues to those corners of Dublin if they’re immortalised in films such as the ones mentioned above.

Every corner of Ireland shares that sense of importance, though. It’s just not feasible for every corner to have itself celebrated on screen. Perhaps that’s the play here — we should be encouraging others to follow suit rather than begrudging the activity in the capital. After all, everyone, more or less, carries a high-quality film camera in their pockets, so maybe more immortalising should be done by citizens everywhere. The rate at which the cityscape in Cork is changing, for instance, cries out for recording — hence the importance of the work of Joe Healy and co in reminding us of what went before.

Let’s amend that putdown a little bit: every scene should be celebrating itself for posterity. Or maybe every scene should be celebrated.