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If you’ve a bit of downtime over the festive season and want something a little different from the usual rewatch loop, here are a few Irish favourites. Expect music, humour, heart, and the occasional emotional gut-punch.
Once A quiet, beautiful film about two struggling musicians in Dublin who connect through songwriting. Low-key, heartfelt, and guaranteed to get at least one song stuck in your head.
🎥 Trailer: https://youtu.be/K4uFFNl6FQ4 🎶 Music shop clip: https://youtu.be/U8toUHjfE0E
The Commitments A group of Dubliners decide they are going to form a soul band. Talent is optional, confidence is not. Packed with great music, sharp humour, and peak Irish banter. From Roddy Doyle’s Barrystown Trilogy.
🎥 Trailer: https://youtu.be/VSXGeUQc0Co 🎶 Auditions clip: https://youtu.be/xZLcZPb6FiI
Sing StreetSet in 1980s Dublin, this is a coming-of-age story about starting a band to impress a girl and accidentally finding yourself along the way. Catchy songs, big heart, and pure joy.
🎥 Trailer: https://youtu.be/jYk2Vx1z6lk 🎶 Forming the band clip: https://youtu.be/PzQLmUbcwzM
In Bruges A dark comedy about two hitmen hiding out in a medieval city after a job goes badly wrong. Funny, brutal, oddly beautiful, and a little bit philosophical. This film also helped inspire parts of Book 3 of our Wolf and Flame series.
🎥 Trailer: https://youtu.be/p-gG2qo_l_A 🎬 Balance clip: https://youtu.be/zvqaiG7pT-E
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As a coastal island, Ireland has long shared its shores with seals, and over time they became woven into folklore as creatures closely tied to humanity. Many traditional stories describe seals as enchanted humans, bringers of luck or disaster, and beings deserving of protection. Some Irish families were even believed to descend from seals, and tales often warned that harming them would invite terrible consequences.
This belief flows naturally into selkie legends. Selkies are seals who can shed their skins to become human, usually under moonlight or at rare intervals. In many stories, a fisherman steals a selkie’s skin and marries her, only for her to eventually reclaim it and return to the sea, drawn back to her true home. These bittersweet myths of love, loss, and transformation still inspire modern fantasy and films like Song of the Sea and Ondine.
Song of the Sea An animated, folklore-rich story inspired by Irish myth, selkies, and sibling bonds. Gorgeous to look at and quietly emotional. Bring tissues.Song of the Sea
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Can you only choose one?
~ Home Alone
~ Die Hard
~ A Christmas Story
~ National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
~ Elf
~ It’s a Wonderful Life
~ Scrooged
~ A Christmas Carol
~ Frosty the Snowman
~Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
