Friday 30th May 2025
Location: Watergate Theatre, Parliament Street, Kilkenny. R95 D320
Filmmaker Sinéad O’Shea (Pray for our Sinners) brings us author, playwright and socialite Edna O’Brien, as she reflects upon her life and career with astounding candidacy.
Defying Ireland’s patriarchal, religious constraints with her sexually frank 1960 debut novel, The Country Girls, she became a literary sensation. Vilified in Ireland and escaping an abusive husband, O’Brien was empowered and prolific, controversial and sexually open, a taboo-breaking powerhouse who made a fortune and lost one.

Completed shortly before her death last year, Blue Road features extracts from O’Brien’s journals (read by Jessie Buckley); contributions from, among others, Gabriel Byrne and Anne Enright; and a remarkable final interview with Edna, aged 93, as she reflects with dignity and candour on her extraordinary life.
Winner – Best New Irish Feature, Cork International Film Festival 2024
Director: Sinéad O’Shea

Featuring : Jessie Buckley, Declan Conlon, Gabriel Byrne

98 minutes, Ireland, 2024, 12A
The film speaks to Walter Mosley, Anne Enright and Andrew O’Hagan who talk insightfully about her work, and perhaps most touchingly of all with her sons Carlo and Sasha Gébler. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable and engaging study.”
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
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