Poitín (film)

Poitín is a 1978 Irish crime drama film produced and directed by Bob Quinn, and starring Cyril Cusack, Donal McCann, and Niall Tóibín.[2] Michil is a moonshiner in rural Connemara, living in an isolated cottage with his adult daughter.[5] The film aired on RTÉ Television on Saint Patrick's Day in 1979 and caused a "public outrage".[2][1] Taken by some as an insult to the idealized Western Irish identity, particularly pointing to the "spud fight" scene in the film, criticism echoed the response to John Millington Synge's stageplay The Playboy of the Western World (the "Playboy Riots") seventy years earlier and the reaction to Brian O'Nolan's Irish language novel An Béal Bocht forty years prior, both of which also played on Irish stereotypes, to which some in "respectable society" were sensitive.[6] The Times Digital Archive does not give any further British TV transmissions of this film.
Bob QuinnCyril CusackDonal McCannNiall Tóibíncrime drama filmfeature filmArts Council of IrelandmoonshinerConnemarapoitínpotatoesTom Sailí Ó FlaitheartaMacdara Ó FáthartaMick LallySeán Ó CoisdealbhaTomás Mac EoinCounty GalwayCarraroeDublinAdelphi CinemaRTÉ TelevisionJohn Millington SyngeThe Playboy of the Western WorldBrian O'NolanAn Béal BochtSouthern TelevisionThe Times