DON'T miss your chance to see Oscar long-listed documentary Rocky Ros Muc on the big screen at QFT Belfast from today.
The first ever feature length Irish language documentary to be in Oscar contention, the Michael Fanning-directed film examines the life of Co Galway-born boxer Sean Mannion, who had his shot at the world super welterweight title at New York's Madison Square Garden in 1984.
From the tiny village of Ros Muc in the Connemara Gaeltach, Mannion was a talented fighter and passionate Irish speaker. His sporting prowess took him all the way to the USA and the mean streets of 1970s Boston in the era of Whitey Bulger, where he made his new home among the tight-knit community of fellow Irish emigrants who retained Gaelic as their first language.
For his 1984 world-title bout against the Jamaican Mike McCallum, Mannion infamously turned down a huge sponsorship deal with an American company who wanted their name on the waistband of his boxing shorts.
The Irishman refused, insisting that the name of his hometown would always have pride of place there, where everyone watching his fights (which sadly did not include the Ireland he'd left behind) would see it.
Featuring contemporary interviews with Mannion himself (in Irish, naturally, with English subtitles) and those who were there alongside him, plus plenty of evocative archive footage, Rocky Ros Muc is an engrossing look at the often turbulent life of a unique Irish sporting character and the Irish American community in which he still lives.
:: Book now at Queensfilmtheatre.com. The 6.10pm screening on Sunday November 26 will be the full Irish language version with English subtitles.
