'˜Mother Ireland' screening

To mark the 30th anniversary of a British Broadcasting restriction, the Museum of Free Derry will screen an uncensored version of the award-winning documentary '˜Mother Ireland' (1988) tonight, Friday October 19 at 7.30pm.
By The Newsroom
Published 19th Oct 2018, 09:04 BST
Updated 19th Oct 2018, 10:10 BST
Mairead Farrell in Mother Ireland.Mairead Farrell in Mother Ireland.
Mairead Farrell in Mother Ireland.

The film will be followed by a panel discussion and Q&A on censorship featuring the film’s director, Anne Crilly, its producer, Margo Harkin, and Dr Greg McLaughlin, an expert on ‘Media and Conflict’.

‘Mother Ireland’ was produced by the Derry Film and Video Workshop for Channel 4 and explores the Mother Ireland image as a nationalist motif in Irish culture, and the complex relationship between the national struggle and the Suffrage struggle in the early 20th Century, and the republican and feminist movements in the 1980s. It was the first documentary affected by the British Broadcasting restrictions introduced on October 19, 1988 and an edited version was eventually screened in Channel Four’s ‘BANNED’ season in 2001.

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“Most of the media attention focused on the short interview with IRA member, Mairead Farrell, who was shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar in March 1988 but in the edited broadcast version, archive footage and Christy Moore’s song ‘Unfinished Revolution’ were removed and part of Mairead Farrell’s interview was dubbed by an actress,” said director, Anne Crilly. “It will be interesting to see how it holds up 30 years later and how the audience responds to it”.

Admission tonight is free and the event is open to all.