Celebrating Ireland on Screen

Following our Irish Language Cinema season in Summer 2024, Kiln is proud to present another collection of classics of Irish Cinema in collaboration with the Irish Cultural Centre, who are celebrating 30 years of championing Irish Culture in London.

This season will see several distinct visions of Ireland in the 20th century screened over three evenings in our new-and-improved cinema alongside conversations with prominent figures in the Irish community discussing the legacy and effects of these portrayals of the land, its politics and its people, from beloved classics to rarely-screened treasures.

26 February | The Rocky Road to Dublin + Q&A

Banned on release, The Rocky Road to Dublin was journalist Peter Lennon’s attempt to understand and advocate for a new path for Irish freedom, asking people from all walks of society, ‘what do you do with your revolution once you’ve got it?’ We’ll also be showing archive short Irish in Brent – a portrait of County Kilburn in the 1970s.

Bernard Canavan, the celebrated painter whose work chronicles experiences of Irish emigration, will join us on stage to discuss the legacy of the Irish Diaspora through both a local and global lens, alongside Eeva Lennon, the esteemed journalist and wife of the filmmaker, to talk about the filming and legacy of The Rocky Road to Dublin.

5 March | The Quiet Man and John Ford’s Dreaming the Quiet Man + Q&A

The Quiet Man sees John Wayne’s American brawler Sean Thornton return to his birthplace in Connemara to encounter romance and Republicanism in a perennial classic rarely seen in London cinemas. This screening will be followed by Dreaming The Quiet Man, which explores legendary Hollywood film maker John Ford’s relationship with his ancestral homeland, attempts to found and support an Irish Film Industry and its crystallisation in one of his most breath taking and controversial films. We will be joined by Lance Pettitt (author of Screening Ireland and The Last Bohemian, a brilliant new biography of Brian Desmond Hurst) in conversation with director Sé Merry Doyle.

12 March | The Field

Based on John B. Keane’s legendary stage play, The Field sees an epic dispute of land ownership pre-1916 played out in the village of Leenane, Co. Galway. Director Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot, In The Name Of The Father) will be in attendance for a post-screening Q&A about his career, collaborators and role as one of Ireland’s leading figures in popular cinema.