The mother tongue
It has become the biggest Irish-language film in cinema history. It knocked Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast off its perch when it came to awards recognition at home, and Irish linen handkerchief makers are likely to be grateful for its sniffle-inducing power.
The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin) is one of the most sweetly heartbreaking childhood films in any language of recent times.
It’s told through the eyes of nine-year-old Cáit as she spends summer in the foster care of distant relations on their farm. Set in 1981, unlike many a film or novel about Irish childhoods in past decades, nothing particularly awful happens. Still, is a story of parental
