2 days ago
The offbeat Irish town that's become a magnet for the A-list
Here's a setting fit for a blockbuster. An Irish paint-box coloured town, teetering on the edge of West Cork 's dramatic coastline, where Fastnet Lighthouse winks out in Roaringwater Bay, and all around are huge skies, hazy horizons and, beyond, the wild Atlantic – nothing between here and New York. This is the tiny medieval town of Schull, where there may not be a cinema, but there is a film festival.
Green-lit – as we say in the biz – in 2009, the Fastnet Film Festival now sees more than 533 short films from 47 different countries compete each year for a share in the generous prize fund of €45,000 (£38,000). All are welcome, and there can be few lovelier places to blow out the cobwebs and celebrate creative collaboration on a truly local scale.
Flying from Stansted to Cork two weeks ago for the 2025 iteration, I found myself sitting next to Grace and Tim, a couple travelling towards a romantic weekend in Ireland. They'd chosen the perfect out-of-season destination, a place with spring sunshine, silk-soft air, heart-stopping vistas and that impossibly green patchwork of landscapes.
What they hadn't bargained for, however, was the added bonus of a quirky five-day film festival, during which almost every butcher, baker, candlestick maker – well, church hall, restaurant, school, pub, bar and hotel ballroom, at least – shows short films of between 10 and 20 minutes. Grace and Tim were in for a treat.
Never one to miss an opening-night party, I spent my first evening raising a glass to the week ahead at Schull's free event, held in the town's hilltop convent; then, the following morning, I hightailed it along the quayside for a ferry crossing to the Irish-speaking Cape Clear Island.
In these warm southerly waters, whales, dolphins and leatherback turtles all make regular appearances, and the iconic Fastnet Rock Lighthouse – of Shipping Forecast fame – rears up amongst the megalithic standing stones.
It was not for these natural delights that I'd come, however, but rather for the festival's 'Irish Language Day' event. A 40-minute walk up lanes banked with wild flowers brought me to the showing of haunting Gothic horror film Fréwaka, in a big hall on the hilltop; a screening made all the more powerful by the 5,000-year-old religious history of Ireland's earliest Christian saints, right here on Cape Clear Island.
The trail back down to the harbour included stops at various venues showing Irish-language short films with subtitles, as well as a bowl of superlative leek and potato soup at Cotters Bar, and a tasting at Cape Clear Gin Distillery, where the spirit was as delicious as the honeysuckle and sea-tinged air I drank in deeply as I trotted back to the ferry, half convinced I was now fluent in Irish.
If there is one sound more lyrical than that of spoken Irish, however, it's the melody of Irish fiddles. In the gathering dusk, I headed to Schull's Holy Trinity Church to watch my first of the festival's offerings, 'From a Forest to a Fiddle', a documentary on legendary luthier Jim McKillop. Exquisite in its intricate detail, the film spanned a six-month period as he crafted a traditional instrument, until it produced notes as pitch-perfect as the accompanying live performance from Zoe Conway and John McIntyre. If ever there was a soul-stirring show to tug on the heart strings, this was it.
In just two days I caught 23 of the 35 short films: a powerful and mesmerising mix of stories covering everything from Ireland's first women's national football team to an Italian tale of two playful boys throwing stones from an overpass and the subsequent tragedy that overwhelmed them. Each work was testament to the fact that big subjects – salt, soil, the morning-after pill – distilled into this less-is-more format so often make for truly epic movies.
But it wasn't just the spectacular surrounds and stellar stories which made it such a special week – it was the community of cheery volunteers, the clutch of screen-acting and film-making masterclasses which I dipped into between screenings, its showcase for unknown film-makers, and – of course – its sprinkling of stardust.
Saoirse Ronan, Paul Mescal and Steve Coogan are amongst the festival's patrons, while the likes of Barry Keoghan (his electrifying performance in Calm with Horses a reminder of his rise from indie beginnings to global acclaim), Rebecca Miller (there with a documentary about her father, Arthur) and Ronan Day-Lewis (son of Daniel, who came to chat about his feature debut) were also in town, as were Derry Girls ' Nicola Coughlan and Domhnall Gleeson.
The week culminated in the fabulous Festival Awards (free entry, all welcome), after which we rolled happily down to the cosy high-street Townhouse – my adopted local.
And then, as only the luck of the Irish could have it – while I chomped down seafood chowder and pint of Murphys – who should appear but my flight companions, Grace and Tim. They were, just as I'd predicted, having a whale of a time, and already enthusing about returning the following year. And who could blame them? Combine beautiful landscapes, Irish hospitality, famous faces and a spot of creative magic, and good craic will always follow.
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