Tír na mBeo – The land of the living

Project Type: Documentary, Feature
Runtime: 57 minutes 11 seconds
Completion Date: June 8, 2022
Country of Origin: Ireland
Language: English
Shooting Format: Digital

‘Tír na mBeo – The land of the living’, a mythological place of everlasting life, is one of several distant lands inhabited by the divine Tuatha Dé Danann. It was a realm of eternal delights, sexual pleasure, plentiful food, and wealth.

The New Irish Queer culture landscape is vibrant and diverse, consisting of different sexualities, genders, accents, body types, skin colours, and ethnicities. This diversity is reflected in the community’s response to pandemics, Lockdown and self-isolation. But this diversity is not necessarily visible, and many stories remain untold.

Pandemic has magnified every existing inequality in our society – like racism, gender inequality, mental health care crisis, access to sexual health services, poverty, housing crises, and immigration uncertainties. The queer community in Ireland has gone through unique challenges during the COVID19 Lockdown. Through the conceptualised significant body of work “Tír na mBeo – The land of the living“, nine LGBTQIA+ participants from different walks of life living in Ireland; share their lockdown experiences and views about sex, intimacy, friendship, art, mental health, sexual wellbeing, racism and self-isolation.

Tír na mBeo – The land of the living was part of Culture Night 2022. 30th GAZE International LGBTQ+ Film Festival presented the film at Outhouse Theater.

Project supported by Dublin Pride CLG and The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

The Participants

Jordi Moya Roset (He/Him/She/Her)
Han Tiernan (She/Her)
Cami (She/Her)
Jeffrin Jerome (She/Her)
Amal Ehsan (They/Them)
William Walsh (He/Him)
Pedro Fernandez (He/Him)
John Gilmore (He/They)
Dil Wickremasinghe (She/They)