Page-turning as any thriller, Roisín O’Donnell’s Nesting is also part social commentary on today’s Ireland and an exploration of the universal concept of home.
Ciara Fay, despite her Irish first name, is English, an Englishwoman who fell in love with an Irishman who tried to tame her. Ciara has already been tamed by Mother Nature in producing two daughters in quick succession. Her weapons of appeasement and compliance are blunted as husband Ryan’s coercive control tightens to the point where she must escape her home.
In the early chapters of Nesting I heard echoes of the Australian movie Three Dollars about a successful professional family man who loses his job and ends up losing his family and his home in a relatively short time span. That 2007 movie heralded the world financial crash, high-risk mortgages, and families living with multiple credit card debt.
Roisín O’Donnell’s Ciara Fay is in a different situation but no less precarious. Like many other young women she has presumed that the man she married would be a good provider and a support for her in her mothering years. By the time she finds out that no amount of appeasement and compliance will be enough to stay his need to dominate her, she finds herself further trapped by an unplanned new pregnancy. Unplanned too is her escape in her car with her two children with not enough cash squirreled away to pay for temporary accommodation, but at least with a phone and a tablet. Her first night is spent sleeping with the children in her car in the Dublin mountains.
As readers, we are as worried and helpless as Ciara’s Irish-born mother in England, and cannot help but tut-tut Ciara Fay’s recklessness; however O’Donnell develops this character with care and attention and shows a chaotic political and social system in relief: the hotel as a so-called temporary solution for homelessness. Little by little Ciara develops networks and friendships as she finds relative safety for her family in a single hotel room, but her husband’s menace continues. All along, though, she persists. She is not going back this time. With teaching qualifications from England, she further develops this by learning Irish through Buntús Cainte in the hope of gaining a teaching job in Ireland. Befriending and later helping a Brazilian with his English they share their language-learning experiences by trading the Gem sugar sachets with the Irish language sayings.
O’Donnell uses a captured fledgling as a metaphor for her situation, and the Three Rock Dublin mountain with its communication masts and towers as Ciara’s north star. The ending is heart-stopping.
O’Donnell’s ‘Acknowledgements’ outlines the beginnings of Nesting in a commissioned short story on ‘independence’ for RTÉ Radio One. She was then inspired by research undertaken by Dr Melanie Nowicki that was published in a paper titled ‘The Hotelisation of the Housing Crisis.’ Her final words are to the homeless and to those who become so because home is not safe: ‘To anyone trapped in a place that does not feel like home, and anyone who has ever been asked the question ‘why don’t you just leave?’ This book is for you.
Having read that another of Claire Keegan’s stories was to be turned into a film, I set out to find that story. Luckily, ‘Walk the Blue Fields’ is also the name of a short story collection that was published in 2007, so it was easily found in a Google search.
Although published early in her career (2007), Walk the Blue Fields has all those elements we love about Claire Keegan: rural Ireland, failed love, unrealised dreams, quiet desperation, and roaring protest.
Then there are those sentences, those fragments, that catch the reader’s heart: the sound of the wind ‘A tender speech…combing through the willows,’ clouds in a sunny sky ‘throwing legitimate shadows on the lawn,’ ‘Laughter…clear, like birdcall over water.’
Keegan’s humour is another aspect to savour: ‘springs coming up like mortal sins through the mattress,’ and the black humour of a mother’s revenge in not washing the frying pan after the dog had licked it clean: ‘Let them all get sick.’; Women’s minds are ‘enough to attract a man and frighten him all at once’; and then the last line of ‘The Long and Painful Death’ that comes after a suspensful tale of a writer living in isolation and an unexpected male visitor.
Walk the Blue Fields comprises seven short stories. The fourth, ‘The Forester’s Daughter’, was published separately in 2019 and would make a good film. Martha, the forestor’s wife is a storyteller. When the neighbours came to visit she is ‘plucking unlikely stories like green plums that ripen with the telling at her hearth.’ The second story, ‘Walk the Blue Fields’, is a surprising pick to me for a film. The short story has a priest as the central character and is told from his point of view. The upcoming film promotes the female in the story, the bride on her wedding day, to be played by Emily Blunt, and a love triangle that is not mentioned in the short story. It will be interesting to see how the script is developed. The director will be John Connolly who directed Brooklyn, and the promotion says the film will be based on ‘Walk the Blue Fields’, and will be coming to a cinema near us, next year.
Dymphna Lonergan
Fran the Man
Irish Film Festival – Opening night – Kino Cinemas Melbourne
The atmosphere was buzzing in the foyer of the Kino Cinema Melbourne, where Irish Film Festival opening night attendees soaked up the music provided by Melbourne Comhaltas whilst imbibing the sponsor provided drinks and sampling nibbles. It was a mood that would continue throughout the movie until the end of the evening.
Fran the Man has been touted as a cross between Ted Lasso and Father Ted (‘Father Ted Lasso’ was suggested as an alternative title). There is football and there is Ardal O’Hanlon, and that is where the comparison ends. This film easily shines on its own merit.
Fran the Man is a mockumentary directed by Stephen Bradley and written by Richie Conroy. Darragh Humphreys who stars as Fran Costello has reprised his role from the TV series ‘Fran’ which aired from 2009-2011. Fans of the original ‘Fran’ will no doubt have an advantage of already having connected with the characters and concept. Having said that, I don’t think it is a pre-requisite. This film easily works as a feature, independent of the series.
A feel good comedy paying homage to the Frans of this world, the selfless assistant manager who puts the love of the game and a responsibility to the team community before himself. In a Q&A after the film, IFF director Enda Murray asked Richie Conroy where the idea for Fran the Man came from. Richie responded that it came from his own experience playing club football, there is a Fran in every community sporting club, the ‘unsung hero’. We all know a Fran.
There’s match fixing, a subtle love interest, a cameo by Eddie Marsan and great performances all around. The result is a relatable and very funny ride. See it if you can.
Thank you to Enda Murray and team.
Linda Rooney
Tinteán 