WATCH: Short film featuring Limerick wood-artist wins top award

A SHORT film featuring the work of Askeaton wood-artist, Seanie Barron, has scooped the Audience Award for Best Short Film at this year’s Cork Film Festival.

Seánie is the creator of exceptionally beautiful and highly individual walking sticks and his work has been exhibited in various galleries around Ireland and in London.

Now, this 15-minute film follows Seánie on his rambles in search of his raw material and also brings us into Seánie’s workshop where he shows the treasures he has collected and where we see his imagination at work, explaining what he sees in each piece.

Here, he says, is a sea-horse and there is a dog and this, he adds, hefting another treasure in his hand, is the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Winning the Audience Award at the festival is a bit of a coup for Askeaton Contemporary Arts (ACA) which commissioned the film.

placeholder image — Winning the Audience Award at the festival is a bit of a coup for Askeaton Contemporary Arts (ACA) which commissioned the film.

Last year, explains ACA’s artistic director, Michele Horrigan (pictured, left, above), they decided to launch a new media channel Only in Askeaton. It was prompted by Covid-19 restrictions but also by the realisation that it was a very valid and rewarding way to showcase artworks and artists.

Some of the first documentaries made featured artists who had previously taken up residencies during ACA’s annual Welome to the Neighbourhood Contemporary Art Festival. But art-films made by visiting artists have now also been included.

Working with film-maker Michael Holly (pictured, left, below), the film about Seánie Barron was shot last summer and then submitted and accepted for the Cork Film Festival which has just concluded.

“You could make a full length feature film about Seánie to be honest,” Michele said.

But they were all overjoyed at the film’s success. “It was so wonderful that all of Seánie’s family came to support him and got to see him on the big screen,” Michele said.

“At the film premiere at the Cork International Film Festival, with Seanie and some of his family in attendance, the audience were obviously charmed by this character,” said filmmaker Michael Holly.

“We spent a blissful couple of days following Seanie around his stick-hunting grounds and at his workshop behind his house in Askeaton. It was a great pleasure and an honour to work on this short documentary about the great Seanie Barron with Askeaton Contemporary Arts. “

Seánie told the Limerick Leader he's delighted with it. “It’s great for the oul’ town, a bit of excitement.” He was also pleased for film-maker Michael Holly. “It’s great for him to get an award.”

Totally self-taught, Seánie works at his sticks every day. “It keeps me alive in the head,” he said. He also creates “priests” on occasion, when the wood is right. A priest, he explains, is used to hit a caught fish and “put him out of his misery”.

To find out more about Seánie Barron, click here.