EILEEN WALSH – Actress
(The Magdalene Sisters, Pure Mule, Eden)
Eileen Walsh’s work at the legendary Abbey Theatre in Dublin includes productions of Terminus, Saved, Portia Coughlan, and Ariel. Other theatre credits include The Merchant of Venice, Phaedra’s Love, Disco Pigs, Crave, The Drowned World, Splendour, Troilus and Cressida, Boomtown, Danti Dan, Crestfall, The Entertainer, and Mary Stuart. Television credits include her award-winning recurring role on Pure Mule, and film credits include Nicholas Nickelby, The Magdalene Sister, Janice Beard, When Brendan Met Trudy, Miss Julie, The Last Bus Home, Spaghetti Slow, The Van, and 33X Around the Sun. She will next be seen in a supporting role in the mystery thriller Triage starring Colin Farrell. For her role in Eden, Eileen Walsh won the Best Actress Award at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival in New York.
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DECLAN RECKS – Writer/Director
(Eden, Pure Mule)
Declan Recks is a graduate of Dun Laoghaire College of Art and Design and UCLA Extension, where he studied film and television. In addition to several award winning short films, Declan has directed episodes of On Home Ground (RTÉ), Any Time Now (RTÉ/BBC), and The Clinic (RTÉ). In 2005, Declan directed the first three episodes of Eugene O’Brien’s Pure Mule, produced by David Collins & Ed Guiney. The show received 5 IFTAS (Irish Film & TV Awards) including Best Director. In 2007, Declan directed the critically acclaimed Irish language mini series The Running Mate for TG4. The show went on to win Best Drama at the 2007 IFTAS.
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EUGENE O’BRIEN – Writer, Actor
(Eden, Pure Mule)
Eugene O’Brien’s play Eden premiered at The Peacock Theatre in Dublin in January 2001. It was awarded Best New Play and Best Actress (Catherine Walsh) at the Irish Times/ESB Theatre Awards 2001, the Stewart Parker Best New Play of 2001 and the Rooney Prize for Literature 2003. Since then, the play has been translated into six languages and staged all over the world.
O’Brien’s six-part drama series Pure Mule aired in 2005 to critical acclaim and won five Irish Film & Television awards. In additional to several film projects, Eugene is developing a new six-part drama with Accomplice Television for RTE.
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SEAMUS BYRNE – Producer
(Eamon)
Producer Seamus Byrne is based at Ardmore Studios in Ireland and operates through his production company Zanita Films, producing feature films, TV, commercials and music videos. Seamus has a background in feature film production working with such directors as John Boorman, John Huston, Robert Altman, Ron Howard, Neil Jordan. He was also 1st Assistant Director on the set of Images, (Robert Altman, 1972) and on the set of December Bride (Thaddeus O’Sullivan 1990).
He has produced the feature film Eamon with Writer / Director Margaret Corkery, one of the Catalyst Project winners, for release in 2009/2010. Seamus has the feature film The Visitor in development, based on a novella by Maeve Brennan and a screenplay by David Keating.
He involved in film on a cultural level, including having been a Board member of the Irish Film Institute of Ireland on two occasions.
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DR. BARRY MONAHAN – University College Cork
Dr. Barry Monahan lectures in the history and aesthetics of Irish and other national cinemas, film theory, and post classical American film at the University College of Cork. He has published on contemporary Irish cinema from different theoretical and aesthetic perspectives in Genre and Cinema: Ireland and Transnationalism McIlroy, Brian (ed.) (New York: Routledge, 2007) and in Keeping It Real Ruth Barton & Harvey O’Brien (eds.) (Wallflower Press, 2004), and in contributions to Estudios Irlandeses, Spanish Journal of Irish Studies. He has also just published the book Ireland’s Theater on Film: Style, Stories and the National Stage on Screen