Bob Quinn is a filmmaker based in Connemara whose 1975 film Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire tells the story of a film shoot in a Gaeltacht where the actors rebel against their director. The original suggestion and support for making the film came from Eamonn Smullen, who was Director of Education, Sinn Féin The Workers Party.
Upon release, it was greeted as “the first completely native-produced movie that seems capable of holding its own with the best of the world’s new cinema.”.
After a long period during which the negative was feared lost, it was recovered and restored in 2010. Rabble caught up with Bob Quinn to talk about it.