IARSCOLÁIRE

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This is the dramatic setting in which I found myself last evening (6/3/2020) - Dublin's Smithfield.

It was once an open market but is now one of the jazzier sites on the Liffey's left bank. It boasts a LUAS stop, the Cobblestone pub, and most dramatically the chimney of the defunct Jameson Distillery (above), which is now a panoramic viewing tower with twice as many steps to climb as Admiral Nelson's blown up Pillar.

This is where The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was filmed. This was Checkpoint Charlie.

Unlike the real Checkpoint Charlie, today's Smithfield is a more dignified development.

But that's all by the way and not why I was here. Smithfield houses the Light House Cinema and this is currently one of the venues hosting the Dublin International Film Festival.

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I'm here for the shorts, appropriate enough in the vicinity of a distillery, but no, the cinematic shorts in the one and a half hour programme above.

My particular interest is in Shaun Dunne's Iarscoláire, in which I have an invisible part.

The film's idea is simple. It concerns Coláiste Mhuire in Parnell Square where I went to school. In more recent times the building became dangerous and the school had to move out in 2003.

The secondary section moved to Cabra where it is apparently thriving. The primary section is currently inadequately housed across the road in Parnell Square with a longstanding promise of a new building.

Meanwhile, the old building is falling apart while Dublin City Council is trying to figure out a way of funding it to host an expansive version of the City Library, currently located in the ILAC shopping centre.

The plan is part of a wider effort to develop the north city centre, and more particularly Parnell Square, as a cultural quarter and counterweight to the southside.

Shaun's short 11 minute film was selected for showing at this year's festival. He has another short in the night's programme, Coventry, but I'm not dealing with that here.

So, off we go with tonight's world premiere of Iarscoláire.

I was interested to see how it would turn out. I had been around for the shoot in the old school and had recorded some voice-overs (hence the invisibility), but I had no real idea of the shape of the thing or the final effect that Shaun was aiming at.

Hopefully you'll get to see the film sometime, but here's a shot off the cutting room floor - a carefully orchestrated charge by current primary pupils from the back lane gate into the main yard area.

While this sequence didn't make the final cut, it was just one more piece out of the vast amount of work that went into the making of an 11 minute short.

It will also show you the "cut of the place". This was a recurring theme in the film and was very sad for those of us past pupils from the 1960s in the audience.

This is literally where we did drill (glacaíocht) in the past under the watchful and demanding eye of our, retired soldier, drill master.

Here's a snuk shot of Shaun giving the team a pre-performance pep talk. I was watching very carefully and in the event they all did exactly as they were told.

Meanwhile, back on Stardeck at the epicentre of the shoot. Abandoned for the moment as all the members of the day's small film team are out the back doing the shoot itself.

It was certainly an appropriate room from which to run the shoot.

This, as you can see, is Seomra 1916 where what subsequently became the 1916 Rising was conceived and agreed by all parties present in September 1914.

England's difficulty was to be Ireland's opportunity.

On the night, there was just time for a very brief Q&A on the stage. This consisted of the MC quizzing the young directors on how they came to make their films.

It was a very positive and worthwhile exchange and boded well for the future of Irish film making.

That's our Shaun on the right.

Congratulations, Shaun, on your achievement. Hopefully your direct plea in the film for a decent new building for the bunscoil, and your implied plea for the worthy use of the old building, will bear fruit in the near future.

And this is invisible me. A still from the trailer though I didn't appear onscreen in the film itself. A wise artistic call.

Thanks Shaun for my first ever voice-over. I should mention that I first met Shaun early last year when he put out a call for iarscoláirí from The Ark who produced the film.

BREAKING: I've just learned that Iarscoláire has won the Audience Award for the shorts category. Comhghairdeachas Shaun.

A "colour shot" on the way out. There was a lot of buzz around the Festival and this, no doubt, is some very important person being interviewed by some well known commentator. Don't ask me.

Rounding off as we started with a reminder of our dramatic setting as we came out into the winter dark