Three part documentary for Sunday nights tells the story of Roddy Doyle’s much-loved Barrytown trilogy and meets the cast and crew from the films.
Episode 3 – The Van
In the final instalment of The Barrytown trilogy Colm Meaney returns to explore the world of ‘The Van’. It’s 1995, the hottest summer on record, and cast and crew have returned to Kilbarrack to make another movie. With contributions from Stephen Frears, Brendan O’Carroll, Neilí Conroy, Ger Ryan and more, we learn the story behind The Van and meet the locals who both took part in the film and could relate to the themes being portrayed by its main characters…and of course, we get to relive the magical time of Italia 90 when we all chanted about being part of Jackie’s army.
About Back to Barrytown
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.
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.