Dorothy Macardle Archive and Performance Project (DMAPP) Presents Before Me in A Dream
Before Me in A Dream
A Short Film by Colm Mullen
Conceptualised by DMAPP Sharon Mc Ardle and Declan Gorman
Music Composed and Arranged by Paul Gerard Campbell
Songs by Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin
Before Me in A Dream is the final part of the Prison Notebooks trilogy. Dorothy Macardle (1889-1958) was imprisoned without trial by the Irish Free State in October 1922 for her anti-Treaty views. She kept a series of diaries over six months in Mountjoy Prison and later Kilmainham Gaol. Her papers and manuscripts were burned by Free State soldiers at the time of her arrest in 1922. Upon her death in 1958, several more of her private and literary pages were incinerated, this time by a member of her own family. Fragments of her gaol journals survive, in which she writes not only of politics and the deprivations of prison, but also describes her sleeping and half-waking dreams in which she travels beyond the walls, and at times “visions” events yet to happen. Her dream writing and vivid accounts of subconscious worlds anticipate Dorothy’s later emergence as a Gothic novelist of international renown.
The Red Line Festival will host the premiere of Before Me In A Dream
Thursday 19th October
2pm-3pm
Pearse Museum, St. Enda’s Park, Rathfarnham.
Historian and author Liz Gillis will commence the event and following the screening, Liz will speak with the film maker and DMAPP creators.
Admission is free but booking is essential:
https://redlinefestival.ie/events/prison-notebooks
The film will be available to view in the Pearse Museum for the month of November and will then go to the County Museum Dundalk in December 2023.
Sharon Mc Ardle lectures at the School of Arts Education and Movement, Dublin City University. She is a performing artist and co-creator of DMAPP, which produced a trilogy of artistic works titled Prison Notebooks, including a one-woman theatre show and a documentary for RTÉ Radio, The Lyric Feature.
Declan Gorman is a playwright, director and performer. He is a co-creator of DMAPP. Among his plays are ‘Falling Through The Universe’, ‘The Dubliners Dilemma’ (after Joyce) and ‘The Big Fellow’. He was formerly Artistic Director of Upstate Theatre.
Colm Mullen is a cinematographer known for his work on Frank Berry’s, ‘I Used To Live Here’ and Luke Hanlon’s, ‘The Troubles A Dublin Story’. Colm lectures at Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT) and is artistic director of the Louth International Film Festival.
For more information on DMAPP and the Prison Notebooks series. See documentary for RTÉ Radio, The Lyric Feature – Podcast Link:
The Film was kindly funded by the Bank of Ireland Together Arts Fund.
