“His Month’s Mind” An Afternoon of Poetry, Song and Films – Remembering Niall McDevitt

ARTISTS PERFORMING

…The Artists appearing include Roddy McDevitt (Actor, Psych-geographer, Poet and brother of the later Niall McDevitt). Roddy will perform and M.C proceedings: Poet Alan Cox, Punk Poet Miguel Cullen,  Poets Ana Sefer and John O’Donoghue, Singer-Songwriters Nev Hawkins and Kirsten Morrison. 

FILM SCREENINGS

• The Battle of Blythe Road (18min)

A short film in which the Poet Niall McDevitt tells the story of W.B. Yeats’s involvement with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in Hammersmith in 1900.

Your film (with Sé Merry Doyle) is just what is needed now – and what never seems to be given space in the old commissioned channels. Like John Rogers and others, there is a continuity from Patrick Keiller in the respect (not self-serving or ludicrously obvious and underscored like those celebrity fronted yawns) for a proper dialogue with historic and cultural traces. It felt quite appropriate to watch the piece in Hastings, where the Great Beast faded away on heroin and cold tongue (pun intended). My best to you – looking forward to the next chapter. Iain Sinclair (Writer.  Filmmaker)

Winner of The Special Award at The Portobello Film Festival 2021

Here is a LINK to the Trailer for the film “The Battle Of Blythe Road”

• James Joyce – Reluctant Groom (30mins)

“James Joyce Reluctant Groom” tells the extraordinary story of how after living together for almost three decades James Joyce married Nora Barnacle in London on 4 July 1931. The Irish Poet Niall McDevitt takes us on a London-based Bloomsday walk, stopping at the houses of people who were closely connected with Joyce and his career.

A highlight in the film is when Niall takes us to the house where Joyce and Nora lived in Kensington – James and Nora’s children Giorgio and Lucia came to visit and so did the paparazzi seeking out a good story…

“James Joyce – Reluctant Groom” was nominated for a Special Award at. The Portobello Film Festival 2021

Here is a LINK to the Trailer for the film “James Joyce – Reluctant Groom”.

• “BlakeLand – William Blake and Thomas Paine (1 hour)

In this first film in a series of five, Niall McDevitt takes a deep dive into Albion’s greatest visionary William Blake (1757 – 1827), described by Peter Ackroyd as ‘the most powerful, most significant philosopher or thinker in the course of English history’.

“There’s no better way to discover Blake than to walk the streets that he lived, studied, worked and died in: streets that the poet wrote and painted into his mystical works. There can be few better guides to William Blake’s world than the wild, exuberant and sage Irish poet Niall McDevitt; truly, McDevitt is one of the great Blakeans of our age”.  Peter Ackroyd

 

Sé Merry Doyle’ says.. ‘Our five films begin with Blake’s relationship to the great revolutionist and political theorist Thomas Paine (1737-1809).  Blake and Paine dined together, and the younger poet must have admired the radical journalist’s bold denunciations of England’s ‘Crown, Lords and Commons’. Our film explores the many ups and downs that Blake and Paine suffered because of their political views. For Blake it was the overt censorship that stopped his work from being published and the outrageous burning of many of his works. For Paine it was a life of evading prison because of the perceived seditious writings contained in his great books ‘The Rights of Man’ part 1 and 2.  Blake loved Paine and Paine love Blake. McDevitt reveals the extraordinary backstory to the times they lived in”.

“BlakeLand -William Blake and Thomas Paine” was nominated for Best Art Documentary at The Portobello Film Festival 2022.

“Every Sunday in August 2021, the incandescent Irish poet Niall McDevitt led a series of walks through London, themed around his great hero and fellow visionary William Blake. Filmmaker Sé Merry Doyle was on hand to capture each poetic pilgrimage, featuring McDevitt’s inspired connections and brilliant insights, together with random interactions with puzzled and intrigued passers-by. Doyle’s film of the first walk, on the topic of Blake and his contemporary Thomas Paine, rekindles that revolutionary spark and now forms a poignant and lasting memorial to McDevitt, whom we have so tragically lost. It’s to be hoped that the four subsequent films will swiftly follow in his memory”. – Suzi Feay. Journalist. Chair of the Critic’s Circle. Former Arts Reviewer on The Financial Times.

“The night of the premiere screening of Sé Merry Doyle’s film “Blakeland—William Blake and Thomas Paine”,  at The Portobello Film Festival, London, was a special event. It featured the extraordinary poet and ‘psychogeographer’ Niall McDevitt who was there that evening, surrounded by friends old and new. And his presence, that huge personality,  was palpable, even though it was clear he was not well. What Sé’s film made clear is that McDevitt was hugely knowledgeable of his chosen field of literature. But he was also a poet-philosopher who traced with a magnificent mixture of profundity and parody the opposing worlds of Blake and Paine. The film now feels even more significant, and poignant, in that it has captured the essence of a man who has left far too soon. RIP Niall McDevtt”. Benjamin Dwyer. Internationally acclaimed Musician and Composer Musicologist. – Head Of Music at Middlesex University. 

 

Here is a LINK to the Trailer of “BlakeLand – William Blake and Thomas Paine”.

“The Battle Of Blythe Road” “James Joyce – Reluctant Groom” & “BlakeLand” are Loopline Film Productions