CULTURE: New Mayo documentary shows how Swinford’s past is all our yesterdays

YOU can take the people out of a rural Irish town, but you can never take away its character, stories, songs and folklore.
With little but a camera, a modest budget and an unquenchable passion for her native Swinford, acclaimed filmmaker Breege Rowley has immortalised the social history of this small Mayo town through ‘All Our Yesterdays’. Her 90-minute documentary outlines the town’s transformation from the Penal Laws to the present day.
“It’s the story of the people of Ireland told through the people of Swinford,” Breege tells The Mayo News ahead of the launch of her passion project.
In her 25-year career, she has produced such critically acclaimed films as ‘Pavee Lackeen’, which shines a light on the life of a Traveller family in modern Ireland, and the Oscar-shortlisted short film ‘Buskers’.
One look at the trailer for ‘All Our Yesterdays’ tells you that this is far from an amateur, cobbled-together collection of home videos from football matches and fair days.
“In the west of Ireland lies a land marked by the scars of its history and the indomitable spirit of its people,” a narrator begins, over drone shots of Croagh Patrick.
Before long, we see Swinford; the sites, the sounds, the Siamsa Sráide street festival, the wide main street, the famine grave, the house with the half-door, and, most importantly, the people.
Because this is the story of Swinford, told by its people. The filmmaker is from Swinford. All the film grading was done by Ciara Gollogly from Swinford, and most of the original music was composed by the late Conor Walsh from Swinford.
“All the interviewees, all the historians are all from Swinford or connected with Swinford,” Breege notes.

Broad appeal
Though she has lived in Dublin most of her life, Breege has maintained a lifelong connection with her native town, primarily through the 40-year-old Siamsa Sráide festival, which she has been filming for years. But it wasn’t until 2015 that she got the idea to make a feature-length documentary about Swinford, after she realised its stories were rapidly disappearing with the passing people like Mary Convey, the local librarian.
“She had a great social history of the area and of the town. It was one of my biggest regrets that I never interviewed her. It was from that that I felt that we should archive Swinford’s memories,” explains Breege.
So began a nine-year-long labour love that long amounted to a struggle, largely due to funding. That struggle was so long and arduous that five of the people she had hoped to interview had passed away before she could hit the little red button.
But she persisted. With a small LEADER grant and the help of a GoFundMe, ‘All Our Yesterdays’ was finally finished and will launch this Saturday in – well, it’s not hard guess where. After the Swinford launch, Breege hopes to take the film to film festivals in Chicago, Sydney and wherever else the Irish went in search of a better life.
“Is not just the story of Swinford. It’s an echo of every townland in Ireland,” she says. “And I feel that this isn’t just an Irish story, this is a diaspora story. It’s not really the people who are living here that are going to be wholly interested in this story, it’s people who have ancestors going back generations. And they have to understand where their ancestors came from and the fight and the will and the determination of the people that emigrated from here…
“A lot of people left this country with basically nothing, sometimes nothing in their bellies, and they survived in countries all over the world. This story is definitely something that’s going to interest not just Irish people, but the diaspora worldwide.”

• ‘All Our Yesterdays’, by Breege Rowley, will be launched in The Gateway Hotel in Swinford tonight, Saturday, October 26, at 7pm. You can support the film on the GoFundMe crowdfunding platform at gofund.me/c413b951, where the trailer is also available to watch.