Menu
Director
Aisling Walsh
Credits
Producers: Dominic Wright, John McDonnell. Writers: Aisling Walsh, Kevin Byron Murphy, Patrick Galvin
Principal Cast
Aidan Quinn, Iain Glen, Marc Warren, John Travers
Category
FeatureF-Rated
The brutality of Ireland’s industrial schools has become a matter of public knowledge – and shame – over the last twenty years and Song for a Raggy Boy is part of that narrative of revelation. This film from Aisling Walsh revolves around the efforts of Franklin (Aidan Quinn), a one-time revolutionary hired to be a lay teacher at a reform school. Here he is shocked by the school’s culture of brutality; led by the cruel Brother John (Iain Glen), the boys at the school are subject to a regime of torture and degradation. Made to answer to numbers instead of names, the worst horror the boys are exposed to is a paedophile willingly accommodated by the staff. Based on Patrick Galvin’s memoir which recounted his time in an industrial school, Song for a Raggy Boy is a powerful depiction of the worst elements of Ireland’s religious institutions.
100 minutes, Ireland/UK/Denmark/Spain, 2003, Colour
ABOUT DRY GRASSES 15:00, 19:10
AMERICAN INDEPENDENTS: THE DOOM GENERATION 17.00
ARCHIVE AT LUNCHTIME: BRITISH & IRISH (DOUBLE BILL) 13.40
CROSSING 11:40, 20:40
I SAW THE TV GLOW 15.40, 18.00
LA CHIMERA 14:10
NOTES FROM SHEEPLAND 14:00, 18:50
THAT THEY MAY FACE THE RISING SUN 11:10
THE CONVERSATION 50TH ANNIVERSARY 4K RESTORATION 20:15
THE SATURDAY SERIAL: INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY 11.00
The IFI is supported by The Arts Council