Neasa Ní Chianáin
2021School Life
Neasa Ní Chianáin, David Rane
John and Amanda teach Latin, English and guitar at a fantastical stately home-turned-school. Nearly 50-year careers are drawing to a close for the pair who have become legends with the mantra: “Reading! ’Rithmetic! Rock ’n’ roll!” But for pupil and teacher alike, leaving is the hardest lesson.
School Life
Fairytale of Kathmandu
Neasa Ní Chianáin
Fairytale of Kathmandu is a 2007 documentary by Neasa Ní Chianáin. The documentary focused on visits by the poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh to Nepal during which he had close relationships with many young boys of 16 years old or younger. The documentary questioned whether Ó Searcaigh's relationships with these youths were exploitative and whether they demonstrated a power and wealth imbalance between the 50 year old Ó Searcaigh and the young Nepalese. Ó Searcaigh is presented in the documentary as paying for the housing, food, bicycles and clothing of boys at most 16 years old. He mentions on camera having sex with some of them, denying that he abused them or that he coerced them into having sex with him.
Fairytale of Kathmandu
The Stranger
Neasa Ní Chianáin
When we are gone, what do people remember of us? Neal MacGregor, an English artist, died alone, prematurely, aged 44, in a stone hen-house that he couldn’t stand up in, where he lived without water, electricity or heating on a remote island. The Gaelic-speaking islanders on the rapidly depopulating island, knew little of Neal during the 8 years he lived there. Who was this Stranger? Was he a British spy recording IRA gun-running routes, as some islanders thought? Was he trying to take control of the island? Was he crazy, as others thought? Or was he just seeking solitude? Neal left behind volumes of beautifully illustrated notebooks and secret diaries, and this beautiful enigmatic film pulls together the jigsaw of missing pieces, and sensitively paints a portrait of a man, living on the edge, physically and mentally, and the insular island community he lived amongst.
The Stranger
