Higher Ground' features two hill-farmers and explores the connection between land and community.Rural communities have always worked hard and relied on each other to survive, it is a way of life that fosters strong bonds and rich traditions.Modern farming practices have caused a rapid decrease in those communal traditions, but a new sustainable hill farming initiative has helped bring farmers together again.The film also touches on the insecurity of life, under the violent oppression experienced in Ireland in the early twentieth century. Further info on the farmers featured:Tommy Ryan is a farmer in his late 80s from Mount Leinster, The Blackstairs, South Carlow, Ireland. His aunt was arrested and jailed by the Black and Tans when she was just fourteen years old.Martin Shannon is the Chairman of the Blackstairs Farming Group, Rathanna, Co. Carlow. They succeeded in gaining European funding for a highly successful sustainable hill farming project in the Blackstairs Mountains.

Higher Ground

A cinematic telling of the true story of the team that carried the first ever full keg of stout up Carrauntoohil Mountain, the first and highest poured pint in Ireland.

The Mountain Keg

In the old Claddagh fishing village, the King was just another fisherman elected by his briny prowess.The King of the Claddagh offers a short glimpse of this unique part of Galway City in the past and the present. The film is guided by the reflections of Michael Lynskey, accompanied by the voice of Margaretta D’Arcy reading from original new writings by Paedar O’Dowd.Sweeping contemporary footage is coupled with archival images of this special place, where the menfolk farmed the sea and not the land, while the women sold the catch and the gleaming Claddagh rings.

The King of the Claddagh

When Irish cinematographer Jules Charlton was a small child he got a ringside seat, through his mother’s great friendship with Mariga Guinness, to the historic achievements of Mariga and her husband Desmond after they co-founded the Irish Georgian Society and saved some of Ireland’s greatest buildings - such as Castletown House in Co. Kildare - from speculation or ruin.In ‘Memory of Mariga’, Jules returns to Castletown house with his HD camera to document the house as it is today in the ownership of the Irish State and to share personal, impressionistic memories of Mariga, his mother Maureen and his childhood; playing alone in the rooms of Castletown and its surrounding woods.

Memory of Mariga

A biographical documentary. A film about life, art and place.

Two Birds Sang

Short Documentaries (Ireland)

Virtual Admission - Short Documentaries (Ireland)

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