Dublin area films: North Circular and Ghosts of Baggotonia

You wait years for a black and white film focusing on an area in Dublin and then two come along at once. They are actually very different films, but I am still going to lump them together here.

Directed by Luke McManus, North Circular is a documentary about the North Circular Road, a winding route that runs from Phoenix Park almost all the way to the Five Lamps junction on Amiens Street. The film expands its remit to look at Phoenix Park itself at one end and Sheriff Street on the other, with the latter basically a continuation of the road towards Dublin's docks. Interesting locations near but not on the road feature, with one notable scene taking place in the UN veterans' place at the end of my road; sadly neither Billy Edwards nor the Patriotic Chonker put in an unscheduled appearance. There are also some nice musical sequences in the Cobblestone pub. The tone is pretty heart of the rowl and there is an amusing bit near the beginning where former residents of the now demolished Devaney Gardens flats reminisce about the great community spirit of the place ("At Halloween the chisellers used to burn out cars on the green, it was great crack almighty" etc.). At the other end there are some great sequences with Gemma Dunleavy, local pop star in the making; I was particularly struck with the live sequence that showed her being accompanied by actual harps while doing her R&B/garage/grime influenced stuff.

If I had a criticism of North Circular, it is the extent of its heart of the rowl focus. The film acknowledges that many people live along or near the North Circular who have moved there from elsewhere: other parts of Dublin, other parts of Ireland, even other countries. Some of these people are shown on screen but we almost never hear their voices, which seemed to mark the long meandering street out as a domain where only the true inner city Dub can really feel at home: a local street for local people. But that does not stop the film being a fascinating journey through Dublin's north inner city.

Alan Gilsenan's Ghosts of Baggotonia is a good bit more impressionistic. It begins for some reason with footage of allied bomber planes from the Second World War but then moves on to its true focus, the area around Baggot Street. In the post-war period became a bohemian milieu in which various struggling writers eked out a living from flats and bedsits; some of them are still well known writers, in Ireland at least (I'm thinking in particular of Brendan Behan and Patrick Kavanagh), others less so. The film also uses a collection of street photographs by Neville Johnson to evoke the era (though his photography ranges far beyond the Baggotonia enclave). And it is worth noting that some of the writers covered (e.g. Flann O'Brien) did not actually live near Baggot Street: Baggotonia was a state of mind rather than a place. The film presents an allusive portrait of the time, using archival footage, drone photography and voiceover to hint at an era that seems almost unimaginably ancient for all that it hovers at the edge of living memory. I recommend the film to anyone interested in that cohort of writers or in bohemian life generally.

images:

North Circular still (The Journal: "Lockdown took me on a journey to film life along Dublin's North Circular Road")

Patrick Kavanagh and Anthony Cronin arrive at Davy Byrne's on Duke Street after a Bloomsday trip to Sandymount (Irish Times: "Ghosts of Baggotonia: D4 as you have never seen it before")