We’re delighted to welcome Eamonn Owens to the May 15th (18.30) screening of The Butcher Boy. Eamonn will also introduce the film.

It says a lot about Jordan’s phantasmagorical adaptation of Pat McCabe’s novel that by the time Sinéad O’Connor turns up as the Holy Virgin we hardly bat an eyelid.

A fresco of 1950s’ provincial Irish mayhem and madness, it traces the finest of lines between innocence and psychosis as schoolboy anti-hero ‘the incredible Francie Brady’ tackles bourgeois convention, failed parents and priestly authority in a passionate quest for happiness. . . which ends very badly indeed.

Fearlessly imaginative, black as tar yet ultimately profoundly moving, it’s another one for the ages, thanks in no small part to Eamonn Owens’ indelible, force-of-nature central turn.

Neil Jordan will be interviewed by his friend and frequent collaborator Pat McCabe in our FREE Afternoon Talk on May 25th (14.10).

Showing as part of our Neil Jordan Retrospective which runs throughout May. His new film, Byzantium, opens on May 31st.

See our online exhibition of some of Neil Jordan’s substantial document collections held by the IFI Irish Film Archive.