Ciné Gael wraps up 31st year
with Heaney retrospective

Sheamus Heaney: The Music of What Happens celebrates the poet’s life and work

By Byron Toben

May 15, 2023

Hard to realize that 31 years have passed since 1992 when the idea of having an annual Montreal Irish film event was inspired by Anthony Kirby. With the support of the Saint Patrick Society and other groups, it became a reality under the chairpersonship of Lynn Lonergan Doyle.

Computer whiz Antoine Maloney has compiled a history of its accomplishments over the years, so it was fitting that the 31st season, ending with a retrospective of great Irish poet Sheamus Heaney: The Music of What Happens, should include a tribute to her upon handing over the reins to Martina Branahan.

With the publication of his first notable work in 1996, Death of a Naturalist, Heaney obtained international acclaim, leading to appointments at Harvard, Fordham, Oxford and elsewhere.

Credit was also extended to Treasurer Ann Shaw, ticket dispensers Ken Wilson and Dana Hearn, and several others. This tribute, including loads of flowers, was followed by a wine and cheese reception in the hallway in front of the Cinéma De Sève, highlighted by Eamonn McKee, the Irish Ambassador to Canada, who came in from Ottawa to watch the film and comment about how valuable Ciné Gael is to preserve Irish culture not only to the many hyphenated Irish Canadians but to the public at large. Also present were Lynn’s husband Paul Doyle (2018 Irishman of the Year), and Michael Kenneally, honorary Irish Consul and director of the Concordia Irish studies program.

Marie and Seamus Heaney at the Dominican Church, Kraków, Poland, 4 October 1996 – Image: Maire, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Now as to the film, Sheamus Heaney was born in 1939 in Northern Ireland and raised in Bellaghy, a town midway on a diagonal between Belfast and Dublin, an area known for peat moss harvesting. Studying at Queen’s University in Belfast and training as a teacher at Saint Joseph’s, he married teacher and writer Marie Devlin.

After an early youth participation in Gaelic football and amateur theatre, he turned to poetry, ending in Dublin, where they resided in a house once owned by English poet William Wordsworth.

‘The film contains readings by his family and friends. The poems celebrate farming and fishing, and observe the tension caused by the troubles in the 1960s.’

With the publication of his first notable work in 1996, Death of a Naturalist, Heaney obtained international acclaim, leading to appointments at Harvard, Fordham, Oxford and elsewhere. The title of this film comes from a posthumous Emory University exhibition in 2014 – Sheamus Heaney: The Music of What Happens – to celebrate his life and work. The long list of awards and honours includes a Nobel Prize in 1995. The film contains readings by his family and friends. The poems celebrate farming and fishing, and observe the tension caused by the troubles in the 1960s.

I confess to not having read any of Heaney’s many works but now inspired, I will do so and perhaps arrange a dramatic reading of his two plays, both based on dramas by Sophocles.
Back at the post-film reception, Anthony Kirby, resplendent in an all-white summer suit, showed off a Heaney book, autographed to Anthony in 2012 – a wonderful memento.

Feature image: Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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Byron Toben, a past president of The Montreal Press Club, has been WestmountMag.ca’s theatre reviewer since July 2015. Previously, he wrote for since terminated web sites Rover Arts and Charlebois Post, print weekly The Downtowner and print monthly The Senior Times. He also is an expert consultant on U.S. work permits for Canadians.