Language, Silence and the Place of Irish-Language Film in Contemporary Cinema: Colm Bairéad’s An Cailín Ciúin (2022) and Seán Breathnach’s Foscadh (2021)

This article explores the central role played by contemporary Irish-language film in the reappraisal and re-imagination of Irish cinema as international cinema, focusing on the recent Irish-language films An Cailín Ciúin (Colm Bairéad 2022) and Foscadh (Seán Breathnach 2021). I examine the films’ utilisation and cinematic refiguration of Irish-language cultural and discursive modes in their interrogations of vulnerability, a condition seen by some as a central paradigm of globalisation. The films’ employment of “indigenous” or “minor” conceptions of the self, of silence, of place and of relationality in their explorations of vulnerability suggests that such concepts and the relational modes underpinning them can serve to mitigate and even challenge the effects of globalising discourses and processes. I suggest that An Cailín Ciúin and Foscadh demonstrate the power and potential of Irish-language cinema in the expression and exploration of themes with national and global resonance.