Back to Barrytown: The Snapper – Episode 2
Through the eyes of cast and crew, including Tina Kellegher, Roddy Doyle and director Stephen Frears, we discover the stories behind the memorable characters of Georgie Burgess and Sharon Curley and how they were brought to our screens.
Whilst revisiting the making of the film, we also explore the suburb of Kilbarrack, a place synonymous with the world of Barrytown, where we learn the human stories of the locals and why the film still endures both there and beyond.
About Back to Barrytown
It’s been 30 years since the world was introduced to the Dublin suburb of Barrytown. This fictional suburb and its characters were a microcosm – not only of Dublin or Ireland at that time, but of ordinary lives: their dreams and ambitions, their triumphs and failures – all of it documented in Roddy Doyle’s Barrytown Trilogy: The Commitments, The Snapper, and The Van.
Now, three decades on, the actor Colm Meaney – who featured across the trilogy of films – explores the world of Barrytown: the people who populated it, the real lives that inspired it, and those who helped create it. He peers through this fictional window into a brief moment in the history of modern Ireland: a time when the fortunes of the country, its citizens (and its soccer players) were changing utterly.
Back to Barrytown is a series of three documentaries that will focus on the stories, themes and characters of each of the three books, capturing the fanciful daydreams of escape and prosperity, and the down to earth realities of family, friendship and community.
RTÉ One will air The Commitments on Saturday 22 May (following the Eurovision Final) and The Snapper on Saturday 29 May at 9.30pm.