Winter has been brutal in more than the obvious ways. I just heard via a friend’s Facebook update that Vic Chestnutt gave up the ghost on Christmas Day. Justin Keating, a lion of the Irish left has also died (Garrett Fitzgerald remembers their work together in cabinet here) Cardinal Cathal Daly has gone to God, just as the Catholic hierarchy finally, mulishly owns up to its failure to protect children from sexual abuse. By Irish standards, his funeral seemed small and subdued, testament to the painful truth that however much we get right in this life, getting one awful thing very, very wrong is hard for others to forgive.
A funeral full of colourful characters, sadness and celebration was that of Michael Dwyer, Ireland’s best film critic. He was described by Daniel Day Lewis as “gentle, modest and kind”, a critic who “was never cruel, ever, nor was he self-serving.” That is high praise from an actor. (More here) Dwyer wasn’t afraid to tell you when a film was rubbish. He just had no need for spite or ego in how he did it.
Hugh Linehan relates many of Michael Dwyer’s achievements, and reminds me of lots I hadn’t known of or had forgotten: Dwyer was a Kerryman, and gave the Tralee Film Society and later the Federation of Irish Film Societies a kick in the arse at a time when there was so little choice in Ireland for films, books and music. He founded and later saved the Dublin Film Festival. Dwyer had friends throughout the world of cinema; the French government recognized him and declared him a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.
I grew up in a little town in 1980s Ireland. I wouldn’t wish to have lived anywhere else, but even to a rather prim teenager it felt limited. Most of the notoriously banned books like Ulysses or Lady Chatterley’s Lover were freely available by then, but our cultural window was still narrow. Books were Mills and Boone in the supermarket or something you went to Dublin for. Films were whatever was showing at the local flea-pit, assuming it was open and not, at that moment, turned into a restaurant or just left to rot. Television had two channels and video, when Xtravision came to our town, was mostly Rocky’s and Jean Claude van Damme flicks.
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