The IAF is delighted to present a special screening of Luke McManus’s film North Circular (2022), in partnership with the Irish Film Institute as part of the 2024 St Patrick’s Festival’s One City programme.

Traveling the length of Dublin’s North Circular Road, from the Phoenix Park to Dublin Port, this musical odyssey explores the history, music and residents of this richly storied street. Infused with warmth and Dublin wit, the film celebrates the power of community which fuels the battle to save the legendary Cobblestone Pub, and the celebrations for Kellie Harrington’s homecoming. With musical turns from John Francis Flynn, Séan Ó Túama, Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin, Ian Lynch, and Gemma Dunleavy. In North Circular, the street is not something neutral in the lives of those who talk about it, or sing on it, or live in it, but it is forming their character too.

The film returns to the IFI for this special screening featuring a live cello overture by the composer of the film’s incidental music, Kevin Murphy (Slow Moving Clouds / Blind Stitch), and a post-screening discussion with director Luke McManus and architect and historian Merlo Kelly, hosted by Emmett Scanlon (Director, IAF) exploring the film in the context of urbanism and the built environment.

Director: Luke McManus

86 mins, Ireland, 2022, Digital, Black & White, 15A

Photo: Still from North Circular, courtesy of Luke McManus