Hush A Bye Baby

+ Q&A with director Margo Harkin

We’re very proud to be once again partnering with Birds Eye View to host a classic film screening of Hush a Bye Baby by Margo Harkin (1990).

This award-winning feminist drama featuring a young Sinéad O’Connor is set in Northern Ireland in the 1980s, as a young, pregnant Irish teenager tries to contact her boyfriend who is in a British prison, but her letters are blocked as they are written in Irish.

As a film set in Northern Ireland in the 1980s, Hush a Bye Baby is rare in that its focus is not on the sectarian politics which dominate depictions of the era, but instead focuses on the 1983 abortion referendum, offering a humanising tale of the impact draconian women’s rights had on Irish women during this time. That its message remains relevant in 2023 is all the more reason to revisit the film.

Margo Harkin, director of Hush a Bye Baby

Dr Emmie McFadden

Director Margo Harkin will be joined by Dr Emmie McFadden for a Q&A after the screening. Emmie is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at Sheffield Hallam University, where she teaches film theory, criticism, and programming. Her research interests are in Irish Cinema, specifically looking at representations of the Irish diaspora in Britain. Emmie has published articles on film and the Irish diaspora and is currently writing a monograph called Hidden Irishness: Visualising the Irish in Britain.

Only at The Rio, on Sunday 5th February. Tickets from the Rio’s website