Irish Film Series Starts This Week

Celebrate the people and ways of the Emerald Isle in March on the next four Friday afternoons.

The Barrington library is hosting a free matinee film series at 2 pm titled: “Erin Go Bragh: Movies Set in Ireland.” Librarian Doug Swiszcz, a movie buff, leads the series beginning March 9 in the auditorium.

“The Secret of Roan Inish” debuts the series this week. A 10-year-old girl, Fiona, is sent to live with her grandparents on the coast of western Ireland, just a boat ride away from her family’s former home on the isle of Roan Inish, said Swiszcz.

Fiona hears the lore of an ancestor who married a “selkie” – a mythical creature that assume human form on land but resembles a seal in the water. She becomes convinced that these spirits are the caretakers for her infant brother, who was swept out to sea in his cradle.

Swiszcz said a New York Times critic called the film “a cinematic tone poem, in which man and nature, myth and reality, flow together in a way that makes them ultimately indivisible.”

The PG film was made in 1994. It runs 102 minutes. There may be some moments that may be disquieting to children, said Swiszcz, who will provide some commentary before the film begins.

Here is the rest of the lineup:

• “The Quiet Man” plays on March 16, starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. An American boxer returns to Ireland to forget his past and falls for the fiery sister of a brutish neighbor in this 1952 release.
• “Waking Ned Devine” plays on March 23. A lottery winner in a small Irish village dies and two of his friends conspire to hide his death to claim the prize money in this 1998 film.
• “Dancing at Lughnasa,” also made in 1998, stars Academy Award winner Meryl Streep. She is one of five unmarried sisters who make the most of their simple existence in rural Ireland in the 1930s.