THE BEAUTY OF a short film is the same as another underappreciated artform in the short story; there can be so much emotion conveyed in such a short space of time, it has the power to leave an impression long beyond a more comprehensive piece of work.
In Mourning Glory, a short film produced by Fíbín Media and screened for the first time last Wednesday on BBC Northern Ireland (available now on the iPlayer), we meet Dermot (played by Nigel O’Neill), who is on a run of wake-crashing around the Glens of Antrim, chain-drinking cups of cold tea and munching through loaves of egg and onion sandwiches.
It’s his own way of processing his own grief since the death of his own wife.
At a funeral home, he comes into contact with Deirdre (Amy Huberman), who, while working through her own loss of her father, has taken over his funeral directors’ business.
It’s a short film, but the two become linked in a short space of time. Other characters are flung into proceedings to add colour and build the picture, illustrated in part by drone shot in and around the coastal road and the imposing Lurig mountain that stands sentry over the village of Cushendall.
The goal for practically all short films is to develop into a feature film or a series. It is no different for the creator of this programme, the former Antrim and Ruairí Óg Cushendall hurler, Shane McNaughton.
If Mark Twain did indeed say, ‘Write what you know’, then McNaughton’s upbringing gifted him this story.
“I grew up in a bar. Like if you wanted to be a storyteller, then you couldn’t get a better upbringing than in an Irish bar,” he tells The 42 from his base in New York, where he combines acting, writing and a bit of bartending.
Hurling against Cork's Ronan Curran in 2010. Cathal Noonan
Cathal Noonan
“My dad [the famous Antrim All-Star, Terence ‘Sambo’ McNaughton] used to go into the bar in the morning and open up. And then among the drinkers, he would get an argument going.
“He’d ask a question and he would involve everyone. Now, he might not have the answer but he would head away off again. He’d come back at six o’clock and the lads in the bar would still be arguing about it. It would keep them drinking and arguing, bantering away.”
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And, with the inevitable sense that pubs just ain’t the same any more, he adds, “but sure you can’t do that any more, because someone would just take a phone out of his pocket and find the answer.”
But there was one character in particular that got him thinking.
“Every morning, I would go in to do the bottle bins. I’d walk in, there was an older lady who worked behind the bar for years and years. She’s passed away now.
“But every morning, I would walk in and she had The Irish News open at the death notices, with a little marker. And before she said ‘Hello’ or ‘Good morning’ to me, she would say, ‘Did you hear who died?’
“And I thought this was the weirdest thing. To a ten-year-old!”
So he would dodge about the back, coming in and noticing her put biro circles over the death classifieds. If the deceased was someone she was unsure of, or might require a further bit of research, a question mark would go beside it.
“And I would say to her, ‘Do you know all these people?’ And she said she would just go to them. My da used to have to cover for her going to all these funerals then. She was so passionate about it,” he recalls.
“There’s an obsession with death among Irish people. We do death well. It’s unique to us. I wanted to do something on grief. It’s tough and sad but weird and funny if you allow it to be.”
A chance meeting with Meabh McAlister at the school gates at Cushendall – he was picking up his niece, and she was picking up her child – opened a few doors at once. She works for the NI wing of Fíbín Media, who took on the project. Her father is also the funeral director in the village, which immediately opened up a filming location.
Speaking of death, McNaughton had a close call himself recently. He was on a flight to New York from Dublin in late October when one of the engines blew up.
As it happens, a famous TikTokker and actress, Lohanny Santos, was in the seat behind him.
McNaughton had been waiting to use the bathroom when the plane started plummeting and crawled back to his seat to get his belt on and, in time, his life jacket as pandemonium raged.
“Then all of the TVs, the aircon, the lights all go down. And we thought, ‘Ah shit.’ And I knew we were slap bang in the middle of the Atlantic, and we kept going down and down and down. The air hostesses, they were crying their eyes out and when I saw that, I thought, ‘Well that’s it,’” he says.
Behind him, Santos was documenting all of this and getting progressively more distraught, her ability to breathe getting worse. McNaughton offered her a tablet, telling her that it would help with a panic attack.
After half an hour, it was announced they were diverting to Iceland, and they got there safely.
“Everyone is crying and hugging,” he recalls. “I turn around and tell her that the tablet was for heartburn, not for panic attacks.”
Santos filmed McNaughton and said that she was thankful that he lied to her for the whole flight. By another coincidence, the man sitting in the seat next to her was the broadcaster Martin King, so the story was picked up by Virgin Media in Ireland.
While McNaughton coped well in that stressful situation, he insists he has no desire to complicate his life by getting involved in New York hurling.
Shane (left) with his father, Terence 'Sambo' and brother Christy ahead of the 2016 All-Ireland club final. Presseye / Jonathan Porter/INPHO
Presseye / Jonathan Porter/INPHO / Jonathan Porter/INPHO
“I go back and watch our hurlers in the championship, but I have no desire to play any more. I am never any good at doing a wee bit here and a wee bit there,” he says.
“I have no real interest since I left Cushendall to be honest with you. I was never just about playing the game. I felt hurling was too important for that.
“Unless it is with Cushendall, I have no desire.”
He has other things on his plate. He has made a short movie with Blue Lights actor Katherine Devlin, entitled You, I Know, and he has also had a run with Brian Friel’s play, Aristrocrats.
In March, he will be in a play in the Paradise Factory Theatre off-Broadway called Bad Daters, by Derek Murphy.
There are other projects, but he knows he will be leaning into the culture that reared him for inspiration. One such idea has a working title of The Subs’that would take the form of a series of shorts following the conversations and antics of ‘six reprobates’ on a substitutes’ bench, awaiting their chance to enter the fray of a hurling match.
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Finding the fun in grief: Shane McNaughton's budding screenwriting career
THE BEAUTY OF a short film is the same as another underappreciated artform in the short story; there can be so much emotion conveyed in such a short space of time, it has the power to leave an impression long beyond a more comprehensive piece of work.
In Mourning Glory, a short film produced by Fíbín Media and screened for the first time last Wednesday on BBC Northern Ireland (available now on the iPlayer), we meet Dermot (played by Nigel O’Neill), who is on a run of wake-crashing around the Glens of Antrim, chain-drinking cups of cold tea and munching through loaves of egg and onion sandwiches.
It’s his own way of processing his own grief since the death of his own wife.
At a funeral home, he comes into contact with Deirdre (Amy Huberman), who, while working through her own loss of her father, has taken over his funeral directors’ business.
It’s a short film, but the two become linked in a short space of time. Other characters are flung into proceedings to add colour and build the picture, illustrated in part by drone shot in and around the coastal road and the imposing Lurig mountain that stands sentry over the village of Cushendall.
The goal for practically all short films is to develop into a feature film or a series. It is no different for the creator of this programme, the former Antrim and Ruairí Óg Cushendall hurler, Shane McNaughton.
If Mark Twain did indeed say, ‘Write what you know’, then McNaughton’s upbringing gifted him this story.
“I grew up in a bar. Like if you wanted to be a storyteller, then you couldn’t get a better upbringing than in an Irish bar,” he tells The 42 from his base in New York, where he combines acting, writing and a bit of bartending.
“My dad [the famous Antrim All-Star, Terence ‘Sambo’ McNaughton] used to go into the bar in the morning and open up. And then among the drinkers, he would get an argument going.
“He’d ask a question and he would involve everyone. Now, he might not have the answer but he would head away off again. He’d come back at six o’clock and the lads in the bar would still be arguing about it. It would keep them drinking and arguing, bantering away.”
And, with the inevitable sense that pubs just ain’t the same any more, he adds, “but sure you can’t do that any more, because someone would just take a phone out of his pocket and find the answer.”
But there was one character in particular that got him thinking.
“Every morning, I would go in to do the bottle bins. I’d walk in, there was an older lady who worked behind the bar for years and years. She’s passed away now.
“And I thought this was the weirdest thing. To a ten-year-old!”
So he would dodge about the back, coming in and noticing her put biro circles over the death classifieds. If the deceased was someone she was unsure of, or might require a further bit of research, a question mark would go beside it.
“And I would say to her, ‘Do you know all these people?’ And she said she would just go to them. My da used to have to cover for her going to all these funerals then. She was so passionate about it,” he recalls.
“There’s an obsession with death among Irish people. We do death well. It’s unique to us. I wanted to do something on grief. It’s tough and sad but weird and funny if you allow it to be.”
A chance meeting with Meabh McAlister at the school gates at Cushendall – he was picking up his niece, and she was picking up her child – opened a few doors at once. She works for the NI wing of Fíbín Media, who took on the project. Her father is also the funeral director in the village, which immediately opened up a filming location.
Speaking of death, McNaughton had a close call himself recently. He was on a flight to New York from Dublin in late October when one of the engines blew up.
As it happens, a famous TikTokker and actress, Lohanny Santos, was in the seat behind him.
McNaughton had been waiting to use the bathroom when the plane started plummeting and crawled back to his seat to get his belt on and, in time, his life jacket as pandemonium raged.
“Then all of the TVs, the aircon, the lights all go down. And we thought, ‘Ah shit.’ And I knew we were slap bang in the middle of the Atlantic, and we kept going down and down and down. The air hostesses, they were crying their eyes out and when I saw that, I thought, ‘Well that’s it,’” he says.
Behind him, Santos was documenting all of this and getting progressively more distraught, her ability to breathe getting worse. McNaughton offered her a tablet, telling her that it would help with a panic attack.
After half an hour, it was announced they were diverting to Iceland, and they got there safely.
“Everyone is crying and hugging,” he recalls. “I turn around and tell her that the tablet was for heartburn, not for panic attacks.”
Santos filmed McNaughton and said that she was thankful that he lied to her for the whole flight. By another coincidence, the man sitting in the seat next to her was the broadcaster Martin King, so the story was picked up by Virgin Media in Ireland.
While McNaughton coped well in that stressful situation, he insists he has no desire to complicate his life by getting involved in New York hurling.
“I go back and watch our hurlers in the championship, but I have no desire to play any more. I am never any good at doing a wee bit here and a wee bit there,” he says.
“I have no real interest since I left Cushendall to be honest with you. I was never just about playing the game. I felt hurling was too important for that.
“Unless it is with Cushendall, I have no desire.”
He has other things on his plate. He has made a short movie with Blue Lights actor Katherine Devlin, entitled You, I Know, and he has also had a run with Brian Friel’s play, Aristrocrats.
In March, he will be in a play in the Paradise Factory Theatre off-Broadway called Bad Daters, by Derek Murphy.
There are other projects, but he knows he will be leaning into the culture that reared him for inspiration. One such idea has a working title of The Subs’that would take the form of a series of shorts following the conversations and antics of ‘six reprobates’ on a substitutes’ bench, awaiting their chance to enter the fray of a hurling match.
Write what you know. Sound advice.
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