IRISH FILM AND MEDIA STUDIES PUBLICATIONS – 2024

Abstract

This past year has seen the publication of several texts which consider the economic and social and creative actualities of Irish film and media production. Given the incredible success of Irish film on the global stage in the past few years as well as the devastating effects of the Covid-19 Pandemic on creative industries both nationally and internationally, there is perhaps no better or more appropriate time to consider the minutiae of film and media production in Ireland, revealing both the potential and precarity there.

In her review of Denis Murphy’s book Screen Workers and the Irish Film Industry Claire Mullaly praises Murphy’s “labour-centred study of Irish and Northern Irish screen industries” (279) noting the richness of Murphy’s research, which presents both statistical and filmic analysis to consider the ways in which screen workers can, have and could shape the screen industries both in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Mullaly highlights Murphy’s thematic focus on the nature of “good work”, which would seem to be at odds with the Irish and Northern Irish film industry’s reliance on “short-term contracts, casualisation and over-supply of labour are the requirements of a low cost and flexible workforce” (279).