a film by Edwina Guckian & Vincent Woods
Hunger’s Way/Bealach an Fhéir Ghortaigh
The legacy of Ireland’s Great Hunger is explored in a new film which uses poetry, music, visual art and historic landscapes to consider how we remember famine and trauma and how best to honour the past while acknowledging modern-day experiences of famine and dispossession. The film, Hunger’s Way/Bealach an Fhéir Ghortaigh, was directed and produced by Edwina Guckian and Vincent Woods and specially commissioned for the Strokestown International Poetry Festival 2021.
It was filmed in and around Strokestown Park House in Co. Roscommon, home to Ireland’s National Famine Museum. The film features new poems by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Paddy Bushe, Moya Cannon, James Harpur, Jane Clarke, Eva Bourke, Pádraig MacFhearghusa and memorable work by Vona Groarke, Tom French, Kathleen Hill and Joseph Woods. Galway artist Miriam de Búrca has made new artwork for the film which features an original music score by Danny Diamond and music and song by Patsy Hanly, Mai Malone, Fionnuala Maxwell, John Tuohy and Mohammad Syfkhan. Hunger’s Way/Bealach an Fhéir Ghortaigh is a striking and beautiful art film, a kind of cinematic poem and a haunting, original work of imagination and testimony.
Watch the Trailer here: