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THE CRACKED LOOKING GLASS – A Film by Trudy Hayes and John Buckley McQuaid

3rd May 2022, 12am

THE CRACKED LOOKING GLASS

A Film by Trudy Hayes and John Buckley McQuaid.

ICC Digital is so proud to bring you this powerful and evocative film, “The Cracked Looking Glass” by Trudy Hayes and John Buckley McQuaid.

This creative montage combines haunting social commentary, spoken by a ghostly looking Hayes, with Buckley McQuaid’s sublimely beautiful, but hard-hitting songs. Woven together with melancholic black and white footage and animation, what emerges is a mesmerisingly chilling film which challenges the onset of social injustice and the actions of the Catholic Church in Ireland over the past 50 years.

This a remarkable collaboration between Hayes and Buckley McQuaid, two deeply-gifted critical creative artists, who will not be silenced and who refuse to look away.

Hayes and Buckley do not flinch as they hold up the mirrors of injustice across a swathe of darkness that surround the stories of the Magdalene Laundries, the Tuam babies, and the daily sights of the homeless people in search of food and shelter.

About Trudy Hayes:

Trudy is an author, playwright, journalist and occasional performer. Her stories have been widely published and anthologised and have been broadcast on RTE. She was nominated for a Hennessy short story award.

Her play “Out of My Head” was nominated for the Stuart Parker  Theatre Award, and her plays have been staged in the Dublin and Belfast fringe theatre festivals. More recently, she was included  in a staging of new work at the Pavilion Theatre by Fishamble Theatre Company.

She is the author of “The Politics of Seduction,” a treatise on sexual politics.

As a journalist she has written for most Irish newspapers and wrote a humorous column for the Sunday Independent.  She recently had a poem included in an anthology of translations of Cuban poetry, edited by Ronan Sheehan.

Trudy is enraged by injustice, and what she sees as the betrayal of the ideals of 1916 in her country.

About John Buckley McQuaid

John Buckley McQuaid is a Musician, Singer/Songwriter, Lyricist, Fairy Tale Author, Painter, Illustrator, Photographer and Video-maker.

Born in Dublin and based in Denmark, John Buckley McQuaid played his first paid gig at the Foxrock Folk Club in 1969.

He has been a full-time professional musician since 1979, performing at countless Clubs, Libraries, Art Museums, Theatres, Schools, Prisons and Festivals all over Europe. He has travelled extensively from New York to Tokyo, from Madrid to Berlin and writes daily.

Much of his writing contains social commentary, challenging the prevalent general apathy. His sixth album, “This Is Where I Keep My Dreams” released in 2021, is a collection of 12 original songs about Ireland, addressing such issues as the Magdalene Laundries, Vulture Funds and the Diaspora.

His latest single, ‘Homeless Hotels’ was released on the 31st of January this year and is dedicated to the homeless and victims of abuse everywhere and Ireland in particular. He is at present working on his seventh album.

RELEASES: Recorded Pain 1979 Thanks (McQuaid & Thuesen) 1980 Stations In The Sky 1985 Call It Love 1990 No Heroes EP 1998 Valentine’s Days 2017 (E-book containing 29 songs & 29 videos) This Is Where I Keep My Dreams 2021 Homeless Hotels (Single) 2022.