Hush-a-Bye Baby

In 1984 Derry, Goretti and her friends go to class, gossip about boys and dress up for the dances. When Goretti and Ciarán meet in an Irish language class, they start seeing each other. But as the political climate gets more and more tense and Goretti becomes pregnant, the ground starts crumbling under her feet.

What begins as a conventional high school movie takes a turn when the weight of religious conservatism, social expectations, and the context of the Troubles enter Goretti’s life in tragically concrete ways.

Shot in 16mm film in Derry and Donegal, the film premiered to critical acclaim and was shown in international film festivals. Amusingly, the most prude and serious of Goretti’s friends is played by a young and already famous Sinead O’Connor, who also wrote the film’s musical score.

Presented in a new restoration, Margo Harkin’s film acts as a foresighted call for transformations to come.

This restoration from original 16mm elements has been created by the IFI Irish Film Archive for IFI’s Digital Restoration project funded by Screen Ireland/Fís Éireann and supported by A Season of Classic Films an initiative of ACE - Association des Cinémathèques Europénnes supported by the EU Creative Europe MEDIA programme.