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Irish Independent
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Housewife of the Year review: Award-winning documentary unearths the sad stories behind an Irish TV relic
Today at 13:00 The period between feature documentaries showing at festivals and cinemas, then turning up in our living rooms has shortened significantly in recent years. Ciaran Cassidy's excellent Housewife of the Year (RTÉ1, Monday, June 2) did the festival circuit last year, winning a prize at Galway Film Fleadh, and enjoying a limited run in cinemas. And yet television, where it will reach a much larger audience, feels like its natural home. After all, television was the home of the bizarre spectacle that was the Housewife of the Year competition. It started in 1967, was televised live by RTÉ from 1982 and lasted – astonishingly – until 1995. From the outset, it was a cringe-inducing anachronism. The contestants were judged on qualities including sense of humour, budgeting skills, civic-mindedness and their ability to prepare 'a simple meal' for the hubby coming home from a hard day's work. They were also encouraged, Rose of Tralee-style, to do a party piece. 'It's very good to be good-looking, but that's no excuse for bad cooking,' ran one self-penned poem. Presiding over the whole thing was host Gay Byrne. Clips from the original broadcasts, skilfully assembled by editor Cara Holmes, remind us that Byrne – who always received an inordinate amount of credit for supposedly dragging Ireland into the light of modernity when it was others, mainly women, who were doing the real heavy lifting – could be gratingly patronising. 'Are you a women's libber?' he asks one woman, as the audience whoop with laughter and clap like performing seals. The whole thing was an embarrassment ripe for mockery, and mock it plenty of people did. Cassidy uses the Housewife of the Year competition, absurd as it was, as a jumping off point for a look at how generations of women were subjugated by the State and the church A lesser documentary might have gone down the point-and-snigger route: 'Look at this! Can you believe how backward Ireland was in those days?' Instead, Cassidy uses the Housewife of the Year competition, absurd as it was, as a jumping off point for a look at how generations of women were subjugated by the State and the church – which were basically one and the same entity – sometimes with the collusion of their husbands and parents. In its own unwitting way, the competition was a small brick in the wall of sexism and misogyny that kept Irish women where the patriarchy thought they belonged: in the kitchen and the maternity ward. ADVERTISEMENT Learn more There's no narration, no learned talking heads. Just the faces and voices of some of the women who entered it and, in some cases, won. We see them first as they were in those old clips, then as they are now – standing on a bare stage, telling their personal stories of sadness and cruelty from a time when contraception and divorce were outlawed, and women had to give up work as soon as they married (teachers were an exception). One was married at 20. At 31, she had 13 children, including four sets of twins. 'I didn't know which end of me was up,' she says. Her husband drank their money. The more kids she had, the more he retreated to the pub. She used to take a pot to a food centre to have it filled with stew. On the bus home, everyone could smell the stew – the smell of embarrassment. She entered the competition for the prize – £300 in cash and a gas cooker – and won. Another, having taken some photos of herself and her two friends on an innocent rowing boat trip with some boys when she was 16, left the film in the pharmacy for developing. The pharmacist brought the pictures to the local priest, who showed them to her parents and said: 'You need to do something about this one.' They took his advice and deposited her with the Magdalene Sisters, then left without saying goodbye. Vivid and moving as their recollections are, there's a remarkable lack of bitterness here There were stories here of a woman abandoned by her husband, of one who made contact with the mother who'd given her up for adoption, only to be told by her half-sisters, 'You weren't wanted then and you're not wanted now,' and of one who gave up a nursing career in London to marry into a life of domestic drudgery. 'I was doing things that didn't need doing at all, just to occupy my mind,' she says. Vivid and moving as their recollections are, there's a remarkable lack of bitterness here. The Housewife of the Year show may have been a symbol of a repressive society, but some of them look back on it with a certain degree of affection.
The Journal
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Journal
Colm Meaney to star as Ian Bailey in new film about a Sophie Toscan Du Plantier murder trial
JIM SHERIDAN'S FILM portraying a fictitious trial of British journalist Ian Bailey for the murder of Frenchwoman Sophie Toscan Du Plantier in west Cork will have its Irish premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh in July. Jim Sheridan co-directed the film, entitled 'RE-CREATION', with David Merriman. It stars Colm Meaney as Ian Bailey, Jim Sheridan as Juror One, Aidan Gillen, and Vicky Krieps. Other notable names include John Connors, known for his role in Love/Hate, Brendan Conroy (Ros na Rún, Bodkin), and Jim Sheridan's daughter Clodagh Amira Sheridan. The premise of the film revolves around the deliberations of the jury and the unsolved case of the murder of 39-year-old Ms Toscan Du Plantier. A promotional still from the film. Tribeca Festival Tribeca Festival 'Based on real events, the film reconstructs, through the discussions between these twelve people, a case that ultimately invites the viewer to draw their own conclusions,' promotional material for the film reads. Ms Toscan Du Plantier was a 39-year-old filmmaker who was killed outside her holiday home in Cork in 1996. Ian Bailey was the prime suspect in the murder and was arrested twice by gardaí in connection with the case, but was never charged. He strenuously denied the accusation that he had anything to do with Ms Toscan Du Plantier's death. Advertisement In 2019, Bailey was convicted in absentia in Paris of the murder of the Frenchwoman and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. France failed in its application to have Bailey extradited from Ireland to serve the sentence. Bailey died at the age of 66 in January 2024. The film is set to premiere at film festival Tribeca in New York City on 8 June. It has been described as being a ' fiction-reality hybrid with a simple question at its heart: what if Bailey had been brought to trial for the murder in Ireland?' A still of Aidan Gillen in the film. Tribeca Festival Tribeca Festival Jim Sheridan, known for directing films including My Left Foot and In The Name of The Father, was also behind a 2021 documentary series examining the murder of Sophie Toscan Du Plantier. Toscan Du Plantier's son and parents were interviewed as part of the five-part series Murder at the Cottage. However, they reportedly asked for their contributions to the series to be removed due to disagreeing with Sheridan's editorial line that Bailey and his former partner were 'victims of a vast police plot'. Sheridan kept in touch with Ian Bailey up until his death. In an interview with The Sunday Independent following the latter's death, he said that he 'liked' Bailey and spoke to him often – although the two had a complicated relationship. Sheridan has said that he believes someone else is responsible for Sophie Toscan Du Plantier's murder. RE-CREATION premieres in Ireland at the Galway Film Fleadh on 8 July at 7pm at the Town Hall Theatre. Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
RTÉ News
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
World premiere for Gerry Adams documentary at Galway Film Fleadh
The documentary Gerry Adams: A Ballymurphy Man will receive its world premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh in July, it has been announced. The Trisha Ziff-directed film is billed as "the first time Gerry Adams sits down to tell his story from teenage activist to party leader". It will screen at the Town Hall Theatre in Galway on Saturday 12 July at 4pm. The festival will open on Tuesday 8 July with Re-Creation from co-directors Jim Sheridan and David Merriman. In Re-Creation 's fictitious Irish trial, a jury must decide whether the British journalist Ian Bailey, who died in January 2024, is guilty of the murder of the French filmmaker Sophie Toscan du Plantier in west Cork in December 1996. Ian Bailey was arrested twice by gardaí investigating Ms Toscan du Plantier's death. However, the Director of Public Prosecutions decided no charge was to be brought against him in relation to her murder. He was convicted in his absence of the murder by a French court in 2020 and a 25-year sentence was imposed on him. However, the High Court in Ireland ruled that he should not be extradited to France to face that jail term. Ian Bailey protested his innocence until his death in Cork in January 2024. The cast of Re-Creation includes Vicky Krieps, Jim Sheridan, Aidan Gillen, Colm Meaney, and Brendan Conroy. The Galway Film Fleadh will close on Sunday 13 July with The Life of Chuck, writer-director Mike Flanagan's adaptation of the Stephen King science fiction novella of the same name. The film stars Tom Hiddleston in the title role alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, and Mark Hamill. The Life of Chuck opens in Irish cinemas on Friday 22 August. Galway Film Fleadh Director of Programming Maeve McGrath said: "The Fleadh is opening strong in 2025 with the Irish premiere of Re-Creation, fresh from its world premiere at Tribeca [Film Festival in New York]. "We are delighted to have a big year of Irish films at the Fleadh this year with over 42 Irish films screening, with the Fleadh providing a platform for Irish film year on year. "Documentary filmmakers play a pivotal role in bringing stories of the world to the screen and in Gerry Adams: A Ballymurphy Man director Trisha Ziff brings Gerry's story to the screen from his youth to the present day. "We are thrilled to be closing the Fleadh with The Life of Chuck, a stunning film that won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). [It's] A film with strong characters that will make the audience reflect on their own relationships. A must-see at the Fleadh in July." Watch: The trailer for The Life of Chuck
