Islanders drama continues on Inishturk

OFF TO ‘BIG SCHOOL’ ?Nathan Heanue has left school in Inishturk to go to Secondary School in Rice College in Westport.


Islanders’ drama comes to an end on Inishturk


Áine Ryan 

THE spectacular location and unbridled beauty of Inishturk provides a perfect and poignant backdrop for a documentary that centres on the life of Bríd Heanue and the close community in which she lives. 

The series of events that happen to occur as the TV3 cameras follow her over one year – 2014 – couldn’t have been more dramatic or compelling if, instead, this was a fictional drama series.

The finale of this four-part series, which will be broadcast tomorrow night at 9pm, sees Bríd’s son, Nathan, moving to the mainland to join his older brother, Chris, at secondary school.    

“If I got the chance to move to the mainland tomorrow morning, I wouldn’t take it. The two boys would disown me, they wouldn’t move in with me anyway. They’d say ‘We’re going home to Nanny’,” says Bríd.

Bríd has just married Joe who is not an islander but is busy practising with the island GAA team ahead of the annual All Island Football Championships, to be held on Arranmore. Indeed, the Donegal island of Arranmore and Cork’s Whiddy are the other two islands featuring in this excellent series. This programme will see islanders from along the west coast convene for this very competitive annual gathering.   

The programme-makers note: “As the matches start, it’s clear that island pride frequently boils over. The quality of football may be high but so is the adrenaline and desire to win at all costs. Matches are frequently stopped to separate players and there are more rucks than an international rugby match.”

There are other real challenges facing the islanders as news breaks that Government cutbacks could lead to the closure of Inishturk’s development office.  

The series finale of Islanders will be broadcast on Wednesday, May 6 at 9pm on TV3.