Reflecting on ‘Dreamtime Revisited’
We are delighted to publish the contribution below from Dónal Ó Céilleachair, co-director of 2012’s Dreamtime Revisited. It charts the origins of his marvelous film as well as remarking on the enduring – and growing – influence of John Moriarty on Dónal’s, and others’, world and work.
I remember the first time I came across the work of John Moriarty. I was sitting alongside Peadar Ó’Riada (the film’s composer) in his home studio in Cúil Aodha, an image of his father Seán looking on from a prominent photograph on the wall above us.
I was on one of my visits home from New York, it was well past midnight and Peadar and I were having one of our heated ‘discussions’ about culture, heritage, spirituality and shamanism. In order to seal the ‘discussion’ in his favour, Peadar played me an excerpt from one of John Moriarty’s talks. I listened amazed to this sonorous, almost shamanic Kerry voice. And for the first time in my life I realized that much of what I had been seeking out in other cultures and spiritual traditions during my 20 years abroad might just be lurking here in my own culture.
That portal of insight would eventually manifest as the film that became DREAMTIME REVISITED, which I co-directed with Lithuanian/New York-based experimental filmmaker Julius Ziz. The film was released in cinemas in Ireland in 2012 and went on to win the 2013 Michael Dwyer Award for Outstanding Irish Film on the Access Cinema circuit.
In his obituary The Guardian would write that John Moriarty was “widely regarded as having one of the finest minds of his generation” and that “many consider John as a major writer, comparable to Yeats, Joyce and Beckett.” It shocked and saddened both Julius, Peadar and I that John’s work was not more widely known at that time, even at home here in Ireland.
I think it may be a matter of years, if not decades, before the significance of John’s unique contribution will come to be fully recognized and our aspiration was that our film would serve in some way to further that process.
Although with the passing of time and the recent 2024 John Moriarty festival, and the emergence of so many people from right across the spectrum of human endeavour being deeply touched by John’s work, that process is now definitively underway.
And with the increasing focus on ecological thinking in my own work, although I didn’t use this terminology when the film was originally released in 2012, it’s quite obvious to me now that John is our greatest ecophilosopher; a fact that makes his work more and more relevant with the passing of each and every day.
A preview of Dreamtime Revisited, available to rent or buy here.
Dónal Ó Céilleachair, founder of Anú Pictures, is a multiple-award winning filmmaker with 30 years of experience in cinema, broadcast television and the arts. His work has been shown in cinemas, museums, galleries, film festivals and on broadcast television and streaming services worldwide.