The University College Dublin (UCD) has awarded an honorary Doctor of Arts degree to An Cailín Ciúin’s producer and director, Cleona Ní Chrualaoí and Colm Baireád, respectively. The pair received the honour for their contributions to Irish language filmmaking, in a ceremony that took place at UCD’s Belfield campus’ O’Reilly Hall.
Produced in 2022, the couple’s film An Cailín Ciúin made history as the first Irish production to get an Academy Award nomination in the Best International Feature Film category. It commanded significant critical success and bagged seven prizes at the Irish Film and Television Academy Awards.
Dr Aoife Whelan from UCD’s School of Irish, Celtic Studies and Folklore, commended the duo’s work in her speech at the ceremony, stating that it has secured Irish language filmmaking a place in the world’s top tiers of film production. She lauded the couple’s audacious decision to turn Claire Keegan’s novella, Foster, into an Irish language film, which she described as a potent tool capable of overcoming geographical, cultural, and linguistic barriers to reach a global audience, including those previously unfamiliar with Irish language film and the arts.
The couple’s notable efforts working with the Irish language, including the production of several TG4 programmes, showcased the growth of the Irish language locally and internationally in the past 25 years. The timeline spans from the establishment of TG4, the Irish language TV channel, in 1996, and the adoption of Irish as an official EU language in 2007, Dr Whelan noted.
She added that she was hopeful that the couple’s accomplishments would serve as an incentive for UCD graduates to be daring and to seize new opportunities without fear.