Controversial Donegal poet features in Irish film airing tonight

Gortahork poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh will be featured among the interviewees in an Irish documentary to be broadcast on TV tonight.

The new film, Fís na Fuiseoige / The Lark’s View, explores the Irish love for the home-place as reflected in poetry and local stories. It will air at 9.30pm tonight (Tuesday) on TG4.

The documentary explores the connection between people and place, and examines the landscape of Ireland using drone technology. Aerial shots of Donegal are seen from a birds-eye perspective.

The film received the 2016 Best Documentary Award at the Irish Film Festival London yesterday. It was shown at various festivals and has received other accolades.

Cathal Ó Searcaigh is interviewed along with other contemporary Irish language poets as the film studies the pagan roots of the Irish connection with place, the Dinnsheanchas tradition, and the renewed poetic expression of the sense of place.

Writer and director Aodh Ó Coileáin spoke about the Donegal focus in the documentary and his experience meeting the local poet.

“Any film on the importance of place would not be complete without the meditations and words of Cathal Ó Searcaigh,” Ó Coileáin said.

“On a fine June morning we filmed with him, seated on the redundant railway platform of Caiseal na gCorr Station near the poet’s home. Mesmerised by his meter and the rhythm of his delivery, I knew we had captured a moment. With Mount Errigal behind him, Ó Searcaigh’s lines came with power and pathos.”