Irish Documentaries

What do people do, when the law prevents them from protecting themselves? Documentary film on the small Irish village that stood up to Big Oil.

An hour long documentary about Barack Obama's long lost cousin, Henry Healy, and his efforts to bring the American president to visit him in the remote Irish village of Moneygall. Filmed over the course of nearly four years, this is the story of how the most famous man of the 21st century came to the village that time forgot.

Against the backdrop of four decades of live performances in the temple of pop, Paradiso in Amsterdam, To stage or not to stage depicts the craving and fright for the stage by performers and visitors alike.

Documentary following the lives of several great Irish figures, including Nobel Laureates Seamus Heaney and John Hume, who have helped transform modern Ireland and who all attended the same small school in Derry in the 1950s.

Music teacher Ron Cooney has been working in the Republic of Ireland's only high-rise housing estate for fifteen years. During this time he has seen the area undergo a dramatic transformation, including the demolition of six of it's seven tower blocks. The young people of Ballymun have had an extraordinary experience, and Ron sets out to produce a collection of music that gives voice to their story. Working with composer Daragh O'Toole, Ron's ambition is to create a 'world class' collection of music for his talented students to play and write lyrics for. This music will challenge the negative views many still hold of the area - views that have the potential to hold his students back, and undermine the aims of the Ballymun Music Programme. The music that is produced attracts the attention of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, and is soon recorded by them in a unique collaboration with the students. A dynamic funny and driven man, despite his own health problems, what Ron and his students have achieved is simply amazing. 'Ballymun Lullaby' is a story that needs to be heard.

The madcap week when legendary boxer Muhammad Ali went to fight in Ireland at the height of his career.

The dramatic historical connotations and true story behind the epic world featherweight title match that took place between Barry McGuigan and Eusebio Pedroza, a now legendary fight that gripped an entire Irish nation on one hot summer's night in 1985.

Documentary about rebel group IRA (Irish Republican Army), and their view of the conflict against the British and the Protestants of Northern Irleland.

The story of "Lunch atop a Skyscraper," the iconic photograph taken during the construction of 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

The tradition of the Irish pub. Speaking to pub owners all over Ireland, Alex Fegan gets into the heart of what makes "the Irish pub" the institution that it is.

A Terrible Beauty is the story of the men and women of the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916, Irish and British, caught up in a conflict many did not understand and of the innocent men and boys, executed because of what transpired in The Battle of Mount Street Bridge. The British soldiers were the last of the Great War volunteers, who joined up together to fight the Germans. They knew that there was a strong chance they would die in France, but to die in Dublin would never have crossed their minds. The Irish Volunteers were weekend warriors many of whom had no idea they were about to take part in large scale battles on the streets of Dublin.

A feature length documentary looking at the recession/crash in Ireland through a number of artists who are using it as subject matter for their work: emigration, ghost estates, and the legacy of politicians and bankers.

This documentary delves into the psyche of John Ford and his twenty year struggle to bring his homage to his parents homeland to the screen.

There are one million stories in Glasnevin Cemetery. Including one you'll never forget.

The story of 11 young Irish Dunnes Stores workers who went on strike following their refusal to handle South African produce.

A portrait of Derry-Londonderry. Personal and intimate recollections of a city and it's people through half a century of history. A time that saw a rise from poverty and neglect, to headlines across the world.

Git, Costello and Willa Lee are street poets, hip-hop artists and songwriters from north Dublin. For these young men self-expression in the form of poetry, rap and song has become a spiritual experience. Their aim is simply to articulate the chaos that surrounds them and to fight it with their words and voices alone. In the end, the place where they live and their words are one and the same, constantly in flux, full of darkness and light. It is proof that these suburbs - that have bred darkness, murder and hate - have also inspired poetry and these unlikely artists are using words alone to fight back.

Interlocking interviews of 4 women interred in various Magdalene asylums and/or orphanages because of out-of-wedlock pregnancies, being sexually assaulted, or just being "too pretty".

Blazing the Trail tells the story of two of the cinema's earliest mavericks--Sidney Olcott and Gene Gauntier--of New York's Kalem Film Company who made a series of groundbreaking films in Ireland in the early 1910s.

An Irish doctor survived the atomic bomb attack on Nagasaki and was given a Samurai sword for the lives he saved. 70 years later his family searches for the origin of their father's sword.

Ten years after losing his sight at the age of 22, Mark Pollock became the first blind person to race to the South Pole. The psychological impact of that achievement put blindness behind Mark and he moved on with his life, becoming engaged to his girlfriend Simone. But three weeks before the planned wedding, an horrific accident left Mark paralysed from the waist down and fighting for his life. This emotional, film - six years in the making by award-winning company True Films - tells the story of Mark's rollercoaster life, the accident that almost killed him, his rehabilitation and his fascinating search for answers in the worlds of technology and science.

Martin J. Walsh took his seat as the 54th mayor of Boston in January 2014. Narrated by his mother, Mary Walsh, this is the inspirational story of the hardships overcome and the familiar reoccurring immigrant story, that drove Martin J. Walsh to take on the biggest battle of his political career and succeed.