I’m looking forward to sharing “TRUE NORTH: Paud Mulrooney’s Irish-Canadian Adventures in Super 8”, at ‘Borders and Beyond’, the 20th Biennial Conference of Association of Canadian Studies in Ireland 2021, at Queen’s University Belfast at 1.20pm on Thursday May 13th, followed by a Q & A with myself and my mother, who will participate from Toronto.

Here is a link to the fascinating full programme: https://fliphtml5.com/kicov/tkaw

& you can register for the conference until May 11th here: http://canadianstudiesireland.com/QUBconference.html

Free and All Welcome!

True North: Paud Mulrooney’s Irish-Canadian Adventures in Super 8

Abstract: “TRUE NORTH” offers a unique representation of Irish-Canadian experience via Paud Mulrooney’s never-seen Super 8 films and self-developed photographs of life on Cat Lake and Ogoki Post Reserves in the 70s and 80s, with his young family, (including the film-maker). Ogoki Post has come into international focus thanks to Gord Downie, lead singer of top Canadian band Tragically Hip’s latest album ‘Secret Path’, the proceeds of which go to truth and reconciliation with Canada’s First Nations. Paud Mulrooney, a school teacher from Limerick, Ireland, was on this path decades ago, when he brought his wife and family to live with the Ojibway and Cree people, and ran the local schools there at a critical period of transition from the Residential school system to more enlightened native community-run schools, developing a new curriculum suited to native traditions and lifestyle. ‘True North’ reveals what drew Paud Mulrooney there – from his days in Trinity College Dublin to an encounter with Vietnam War Draft Dodgers who were forming a film co-op when he arrived to Toronto in the 1960s – bathed in the gorgeous hues of his original dreamy Super 8 reels and slow photography. ‘TRUE NORTH’ was nominated for best documentary at Richard Harris International Festival 2019; was selected for the Belgrade-Irish Festival 2018; and Canadian novelist Jane Urquhart shared the film with her Canadian Studies class when she held the Craig Dobbin Chair for Canadian Studies in 2018.