Fastnet Films’ latest project Playboy of the Western World: Díbirt Cháiliúil an Mháilligh, the second episode of the ‘Fuil agus Dúch’ (Blood and Ink) series will air on TG4, Thursday 8th of March at 21.50.
The 4 x 25 minute documentary series explores the relationship between some of Ireland’s most notorious murderers and the iconic fiction they inspired.
Written and directed by Michael Kinirons and Ciaran Cassidy, and made through the support of the BCI Sound and Vision Broadcasting Funding Scheme and TG4, the episode focuses on William O’Malley and discovers the truth behind the grizzly murder of his father that would later inspire J.M. Synge’s stage masterpiece 'The Playboy of the Western World'.
Guilt ridden for what he had done, O’Malley fled to the Aran Islands and soon became a hero amongst the local population for managing to continually outwit the hated RIC and ultimately evade capture with a little help from the locals. Now a figure of legend, the story of this epic chase around the island while pursued by ‘the Cosai’, the Runner, is still passed down around the fireplace from generation to generation.
“We’re delighted with the series, Ciaran Cassidy and Michael Kinirons have managed to masterfully capture the full horror of these events while also presenting a unique insight into how the fiction was later developed” says producer Morgan Bushe. “Having the BCI come on board was also incalculably instrumental in helping to raise the bar in terms of the dramatic reconstructions. Proinsias Ni Ghrainne at TG4 was also an enormous help and can’t be thanked enough, likewise with Eoin McDonagh at Tangerine who did sterling job on the post. Everybody involved with the production gave one hundred percent and I think it shows.”
The following two episodes will look at John B. Keane’s ‘The Field’ and Brendan Behan’s ‘The Quare Fellow’.
