Poitín

Poitín (1977) was the first feature film to be made entirely in Irish. It was also the first recipient of a film script grant from the Arts Council of Ireland. The film was produced by Cinegael, written and directed by Bob Quinn, and starred Cyril Cusack as a moonshiner in rural Connemara, living in an isolated cottage with his adult daughter. Two local degenerates, played by Donal McCann and Niall Tóibín, terrorize the old moonshiner for his contraband liquor, threatening to kill him and rape his daughter, until the moonshiner outwits them and tricks them to their deaths. The film first aired to the Irish public on RTÉ on Saint Patrick's Day in 1979 and caused a national outrage. Taken by many as a direct insult to the idealized...