{"id":546498,"date":"2026-07-12T22:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T22:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/546498\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T22:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T22:28:08","slug":"would-you-believe-i-got-a-call-from-liam-neeson-catherine-corless-film-premieres-in-galway-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/546498\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Would you believe I got a call from Liam Neeson?\u2019: Catherine Corless film premieres in Galway \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frank Berry\u2019s The Lost Children of Tuam, a dramatised account of the investigations by the amateur historian Catherine Corless<\/a> into deaths at the town\u2019s former mother-and-baby home, has premiered to a loud and emotional response at the 38th Galway Film Fleadh<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Corless joined Berry and the Yorkshire-born actor Monica Dolan<\/a>, who plays her in the film, onstage at the Town Hall Theatre to savour a lengthy standing ovation. <\/p>\n

Liam Neeson<\/a>, who produced the film, was not in the auditorium, but Corless made sure to mention his contribution. The Ballymena-born star began the process by securing the rights to an article about the case by Dan Barry for The New York Times.<\/p>\n

\u201cDan rang me and said, \u2018Would you believe I got a call from Liam Neeson?\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cDan is a bit of a joker. He\u2019ll say something and you\u2019ll wonder if he\u2019s joking. I said, \u2018Yeah, right. I\u2019m sure you did.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt transpired that Liam Neeson had contacted Dan, and he wanted to buy the story from The New York Times. Then he said, \u2018Liam Neeson might like to meet you some time.\u2019 He said he might want to ring. I said, \u2018Call me. Because I am a huge fan of Liam Neeson.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Berry\u2019s film, a mood piece that builds from small suspicions to an international story, follows Corless as, while working on an essay about local history, locates an apparent anomaly concerning the Bon Secours mother-and-baby home<\/a>: the deaths of hundreds of infants have been recorded, but no corresponding evidence of burial presents itself. <\/p>\n

It eventually emerged that as many as 796 children may have been buried in unmarked graves.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the Town Hall Theatre, Berry, the director of such fine social-realist dramas as Michael Inside<\/a> and Aisha<\/a>, noted that, though he usually originates his own projects from the ground up, he was won over by Corless\u2019s story and by Rebecca Lenkiewicz\u2019s screenplay. <\/p>\n

Absurd though it may seem, there are touches of All the President\u2019s Men in the film, not least during one scene when a sympathetic official warns Corless that she may not want the enormous wads of records she has requested. Undaunted, she cross-checks her way towards an almost unimaginable outrage.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Catherine Corless: \u2018I was told more often than not that I was giving Tuam a bad name\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

It is a largely linear tale that injects no contrived reversals into the investigation. But, assisted by Kate McCullough\u2019s damp cinematography and an often eerie score from Hannah Peel<\/a>, Berry builds the sombre atmosphere with great skill. The cunning sound design injects an insistent wind that reminds us there are, about this place, secrets eager to remain undiscovered.<\/p>\n

Speaking in a convincing Galway accent, Dolan, whose parents are both Irish, gets both the stubborn doggedness and the fractured sensitivity of Corless. Late on it is revealed that she has suffered from depression. But Lenkiewicz\u2019s screenplay also finds unlikely humour in the piece. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re hoping I\u2019ll let it go,\u201d she says as the investigation deepens. <\/p>\n

\u201cThen they don\u2019t know who they are dealing with,\u201d Andrew Bennett, unshakeable as her supportive husband, Aidan, remarks. It\u2019s an impressive portrait, aware of her humility but awake to her sharp intelligence.<\/p>\n

The producers made a wise choice in staging the world premiere just 30km or so from the site of Corless\u2019s research. This fine, restrained film would have gone down a storm anywhere, but the home crowd made the debut particularly memorable. <\/p>\n

A number of survivors from the mother-and-baby homes were in the Town Hall Theatre to acknowledge the amateur historian\u2019s efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a survivor, and on behalf of the survivors in the audience, we would like to thank Catherine Corless,\u201d one said at the close. \u201cWithout her we wouldn\u2019t have the strength and the courage to stand up and tell our stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corless seems impressively unshaken by the reception.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a fight and a struggle. People say, \u2018How come you didn\u2019t give up?\u2019 she said. \u201cThere was no such thing as giving up. I couldn\u2019t. Because the people in authority knew about it and they were covering up. That was enough to drive me, and I could see Monica had that same drive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fleadh, which opened on July 7th with Peter Young\u2019s thriller Our House, ended with another packed weekend of Irish features. <\/p>\n

Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Shea<\/a>\u2019s fine documentary All About the Money, touching down after a premiere at Sundance Film Festival in January, told the astonishing story of Fergie Chambers, scion of a hugely wealthy American family who directs his inherited wealth towards those seeking to disrupt the capitalist system. This is a deeply fascinating, properly divided film from the director of Blue Road: The Edna O\u2019Brien Story that remains at a proper distance from its often bizarre subject.<\/p>\n

Also premiering was Rebekah Fortune\u2019s sincere family drama Learning to Breathe Under Water. Arriving just days after its world premiere at Karlovy Vary festival in the Czech Republic, the film stars Rory Kinnear<\/a> as a father failing to accommodate himself to the death of his wife while raising a son. This agreeable, subtly acted Irish feature made cunning reference to the shark that the sculptor John Buckley embedded in the roof of a terraced house in Oxford 40 years ago.<\/p>\n

The 38th Galway Film Fleadh concludes with its annual awards ceremony on Sunday evening. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Frank Berry\u2019s The Lost Children of Tuam, a dramatised account of the investigations by the amateur historian Catherine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[132609,93,216251,231677,61,60,7322,216823,35840,227629,231678],"class_list":["post-546498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-catherine-corless","tag-entertainment","tag-galway-film-fleadh","tag-hannah-peel","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-liam-neeson","tag-monica-dolan","tag-mother-baby-homes","tag-rory-kinnear","tag-sinead-o-shea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}