I have been making work on Irish institutions of confinement since I was 15 years of age. I began my writing while incarcerated in prison. Since then, I have published many books, written plays and created visual artworks that have been distributed throughout the world and performed internationally. At the same time I have had to watch my family disintegrate, my community collapse and my class annihilated by what happened to many of us while incarcerated in State institutions as children.

 

Our story has always been stolen, sold and told by somebody else. We have been pitted rather than given justice. This film is told by those who witnessed, experienced and suffered the institutions first hand, my family.

 

For over forty years I have tried to come to terms with what had happened to me, personally, in those institutions. I searched in the wilderness for answers, for reasons, for justice. Nothing came of it. The more I searched for answers the more there was none. My history simply wasn’t recorded.

 

I want this film to redresses that absence and silence and correct the historical record. This is an opportunity to ensure Ireland’s history and our history is included and written by those who experienced the unthinkable and who live to this day with the unfixable.

 

For the generations to come questions will be asked about this chapter in Irish history. The grandchildren of those who were incarcerated will want to know, will have a right to know, what kind of history shaped their lives.

 

Gerard Mannix Flynn