Fairfield University’s Irish Studies Program To Present Free Five-Week Film Series

FAIRFIELD — Building on the success of its debut film series last spring, the Fairfield University Irish Studies program will sponsor “The Irish in Film,” a five-week series presented on Thursdays at 7 pm beginning October 4.

The five contemporary films, some award winning, will be shown on the Fairfield campus in the DiMenna-Nyselius Library MultiMedia Room. Fairfield University professors who teach in the Irish Studies minor and are members of the Irish Studies Committee will introduce the films. Admission is free and the public is welcome. Light refreshments will be served.

The series was designed to “bring an awareness of the variety and richness of Ireland and the Irish culture to students and to the Fairfield community,” said Professor Marion White, a member of the Irish Studies Committee and lecturer in English. As a result, each film provides a different aspect of Ireland, its culture and its people.

The first film, Some Mother’s Son, directed by Terry George (1996), will be screened on October 4. Set in Northern Ireland in the 1980s, it stars the Academy Award-winning actress Helen Mirren and Aidan Gillen and is based on the story of a young IRA member and follower of Bobby Sands, the well-known radical who staged a hunger strike in a Belfast prison.

On October 11, Dr Leo O’Connor, director of American Studies, will introduce the Academy-Award nominated In America, directed by Jim Sheridan (2002). The moving story of an Irish immigrant family mirrors Sheridan’s own experience as an impoverished actor, with a wife and two daughters, who arrived in New York in the 1980s. Samantha Morton stars with Paddy Considine as her husband, and real-life sisters 10-year-old Sarah and 7-year-old Emma Bolger as their daughters.

On October 18, Dr Donald Greenberg, chairman of the Politics Department, will introduce director Ken Loach’s film, The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006). Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, the film is set in County Cork during the revolutionary period of the 1920s and stars Cillian Murphy as Damien, a young, idealistic doctor, who with his brother, Teddy (Padraic Delaney) join the IRA and end up on opposite sides of the Irish Civil War.

Run of the Country, directed by Peter Yates (1995) is slated for October 25 and will be introduced by Dr William Abbott, associate professor of history, who described the film’s essence as “showing the impact that the North-South, Protestant-Catholic divide had upon the lives of ordinary Irish people. It is a poignant story of love and tragedy, set against beautiful Irish countryside in County Cavan.”

The last film in the series, on November 1, is My Left Foot, a double-Academy-Award-winner, directed by Jim Sheridan (1989) and starring Daniel Day-Lewis as Dublin writer Christy Brown with Brenda Fricker as his tenacious mother. Professor White, who will introduce the film, says it is “inspirational to see Christy Brown, who was born with cerebral palsy, take strength from his undaunted mother as he struggles to find the will to overcome his severe disabilities. Mary Brown is the force that propels Christy’s heroic determination.”

For more information, contact Dr Kevin Cassidy at 203-254-4000, extension 2862, or by e-mail at kjcassidy@mail.fairfield.edu.