How the 2023 Oscar-nominated ‘An Irish Goodbye’ navigates male grief

Ross White and Tom Berkeley, creators of the 2023 Oscars-nominated film, ‘An Irish Goodbye’, which scooped up a Bafta award, says that though the main character has Down’s syndrome, it is not the premise of the story.

Instead, the focus of the film is how men deal with grief in different ways, as estranged brothers, Turlough, played by Seamus O’Hara, and Lorcan, played by James Martin, who has Down’s syndrome, try to navigate family tragedy.

Turlough, who had long left the Northern Ireland family farm, returns from London to make living arrangements for his younger brother, following the untimely death of their mother, played by Michelle Fairley.

The film focuses on male grief

Though in ‘An Irish Goodbye’ one brother has Down’s syndrome, the disability is not the focal point of the film. Rather, it tackles male grief as the two brothers cope with the loss of their mother and work out their estrangement when older brother Tirlough returns home.

“We spoke about the idea of the character having Down’s syndrome... once, and then we just didn’t really speak about it that much, because there were so many other factors of that character that were more interesting,” co-creator Ross White said. “It wasn’t at the forefront for us.”

“Meeting James as an actor, you see the multi-faceted sides of his personality, and actually the Down’s syndrome is way down the list of interesting things about James. He’s a natural comedian. He’s charismatic.

“Lorcan has the agency of his own story, he’s not orbiting around the other characters. He drives the plot.”

The homecoming idea starts to germinate

White and Berkeley revealed how the premise of the short film came to be. After 10 years of friendship in the theater business in London, they each started to write more and act less. They both decided to leave London and go back to their respective hometowns to write full time – this time for the screen rather than the stage.

White explained that with the changes going on in their own lives, the two men wanted to create something that expressed the intense feelings of leaving home and coming back again.

“Are you from that place again?,” White said he would ask a person in that position.

While they were chewing on these issues, the friends got together and went to see a soccer game, where he saw something that caught his eye.

“I just happened to see a couple of brothers who were sat a few rows ahead of me watching the game, and the younger brother, much like in our story, had Down’s syndrome,” White recalled.

“There was an interesting juxtaposition between what was a very typically ferocious, brotherly kind of relationship, quite combative, as they were watching the game. They were hurling abuse at each other! And then... there was this other added layer of responsibility that was there between them as well, which I found quite compelling. There was just something really poignant about the relationship.”

After seeing the brothers interact with each other at the game, the duo started talking about how people deal with grief in different ways.

“It was the idea of two people who see the world very differently and processed emotions very differently,” Berkeley picked up where White left off. “The older brother - stoic, a bit repressed, slightly cynical. And then the younger brother, who wears his heart on his sleeve and has this superhuman capacity for empathy.”

“We thought it would be really interesting to see those two opposites go through the process of grief together.”