CIFF@Home - THE UNITED IRISHMEN

Solas Nua’s CIFF@Home with NYU DC Dialogues presents Alan Gilsenan's THE UNITED IRISHMEN on Thursday, February 20

Register before February 20 to receive links to view the film and pre-show introduction featuring the acclaimed Director Alan Gilsenan in conversation with Solas Nua's Capital Irish Film Festival Director, Maedhbh Mc Cullagh.

This online event includes the streaming of award-winning documentary filmmaker Alan Gilsenan's 2023 feature film, THE UNITED IRISHMEN. Alan will be in attendance at this year's Capital Irish Film Festival for the North American Premiere screening of his most recent feature documentary, THE IRISH QUESTION on Saturday, March 1, 2025.

Registration is required in order to view both the film and pre-show introduction.

THE UNITED IRISHMEN

2023 | Documentary | Runtime: 100 minutes | English

Theobald Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmet, William Drennan, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Mary Ann McCracken and many others are names that echo down the years of Irish history. These iconic and ghostly presences have become the stuff of myth and legend, of patriotic invocation and romantic aspiration.

Across the island of Ireland and beyond, there are forgotten memorials to the Society of United Irishmen to be found in village squares and at country cross-roads, in ancient graveyards and over-grown hedgerows. But the reality of what these United Irishmen both represented and achieved is often forgotten in the bloody tide of the divisive times that followed.

For, especially in the crucial decade of the 1790s, the United Irishmen movement represented – in the wake of the heady revolutionary period in both America and France – a new way of seeing the world. An inclusive commitment to the values espoused in Thomas Paine’s famous “The Rights of Man” – an equal, just and secular society. In the struggle for independence from the British Crown, the movement of the United Irishmen would prove both unique and prophetic in their embrace of all sides – Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter.

The United Irishman and the infamous rebellions of 1798 and 1803 were, of course, destined for failure, a failure which arguably lay the foundations for the violence that was perpetrated in Ireland until the Good Friday Agreement was signed twenty-seven years ago. But now, as Irish people, of all faiths and none, attempt to find new and inclusive ways to live in harmony across the island, perhaps the story of the United Irishmen deserves re-telling?

DIR/SCR: Alan Gilsenan; PROD: Martin Mahon; DOP: Colm Hogan; SCORE: Ray Harman

ABOUT ALAN GILSENAN

Alan Gilsenan is an award-winning Irish writer, filmmaker, and theatre director. His diverse body of film work extends across documentaries, feature films, and experimental work.

He is a former Chairperson of the Irish Film Institute and a member of the boards of both Screen Ireland and Ireland’s national broadcaster RTÉ. He has also recently been appointed Chairperson of Fighting Words, a national organization that facilitates creative writing for children & young people.

His many film productions include the feature dramas Timbuktu, The Meeting and Unless; the acclaimed documentary feature The Yellow Bittern: The Life & Times of Liam Clancy; the experimental film A Vision: A Life of WB Yeats; The Ghost of Roger Casement; the documentary series Daniel O’Connell: Forgotten King of Ireland, a film installation inspired by Joyce’s Ulysses for Dublin’s MOLI (Museum of Literature Ireland) entitled ULYSSES | FILM.

His films Ghosts of Baggotonia, a film poem that combines personal memory and the literary ghosts of bohemian Dublin and PAUL MULDOON: LAOITHE IS LIRICÍ/A LIFE IN LYRICS, a lyrical narrative weaving through the chapters of Paul Muldoon's life featuring a who's who list of renowned artists and actors, previosuly screened at the Capital Irish Film Festival.

Twitter: @AlanGilsenan1

Instagram: @alangilsenan