Dermot Healy Movies
In director Johnny Gogan's deliberately paced political thriller Mapmaker, an outsider in a small Northern Irish village finds himself embroiled in a old conflict between the IRA and the local forestry department. Hired by the Northern Ireland parish of Rosveagh to prepare a tourism map, cartographer Richie Markey (Brian F. O'Byrne) sets about his task, only to find some archeological sites are in danger of being destroyed. Raising his concerns with forestry manager Robert Bates (Brendan Coyle), Markey quickly suspects something sinister lies behind the destruction when Bates brusquely ignores his pleas. Shortly thereafter, Markey learns that a previous survey team failed in mapping the region when one of its members, one Peter Nolan, disappeared after being accused of informing on a couple of IRA men that were killed in connection to a soldier's death. Despite receiving warnings to stop his work, Markey carries on until he discovers Nolan's body and comes to the rather startling conclusion that his completed map may very well solve the mystery surrounding Nolan's death. ~ Ryan Shriver, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brian F. O'Byrne, Susan Lynch, (more)
- 1999
An elderly Irish man (Dermot Healy) thinks about his life as he sits alone in a shabby room in London. He recalls his childhood along the Western Coast of Ireland, and then his days as a laborer as he moved to London from his native land. With no central narrative, I Could Read the Sky concentrates on images of Ireland and England (photographed on both film and videotape), remembered moments with people from the old man's past, and a poetic narration drawn in part from the book of the same name by Timothy O'Grady and Steve Pike. This debut feature by Nicola Bruce made the film festival circuit in 1999, showing at the Edinbugh, Galway, Montreal, and Toronto Film Festivals. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dermot Healy, Maria Doyle Kennedy, (more)
