Pouring His Heart Out - Interview With Alex Fegan

Alex Fegan, director of The Irish Pub, trained as a solicitor before quitting his job to pursue his lifelong love of cinema and filmmaking. Admirable? Indeed. Financially sound? Eh, questionable, seeing as he made this life-changing decision in 2008, literally weeks before the recession hit.

“I was working as a solicitor, but kept having these ideas, so one day started making a film while I was still working,” the Castleknock native explains. “But halfway through, I decided I could either try one properly or do bad at both, so I had to commit to one or the other. Honestly, it felt like I left literally the day before the recession. I was sitting there a week later going, ‘Oh God, how am I going to earn money here, I’ve no experience!’ I ended up shooting wedding videos and the like to build up a portfolio. It was terrifying! And at the same time I was trying to make this crazy sci-fi film.”
The “crazy sci-fi film” evolved into Man Made Men, a no-budget but ultimately award-winning feature that was crowned Best Foreign Film at the Arizona Film Festival. For Fegan, it was literally a dream come true, as he had long admired directors who dove straight into the deep end of the industry. “I admire filmmakers who just go off and make films without a big engine behind them, even Irish filmmakers like Terry McMahon.” says Fegan. “I’m really interested in that philosophy of getting out there and doing it. Directors like Peter Jackson and Stanley Kubrick made two films completely on their own; Christopher Nolan did the same.
They all had the same philosophy; they didn’t wait to work their way up through the industry. They started off making small films, then went on to bigger ones. For me, the directors who work their way up through the industry aren’t as inspiring, because they learn this ‘What To Do/What Not To Do’ checklist. It cuts the edge off their natural instinct and vision.”
Fegan’s personal style and impulsive determination to follow through on ideas is what led to The Irish Pub, his charming documentary about Irish publicans across Ireland.
“I was reading about Irish pubs closing down. They’re such an important part of our culture in terms of history, music, religion, community, so I thought it’d make an interesting story,” he explains. “So one weekend I just decided I’d visit two pubs a week for a year and talk to owners, and even if no-one saw the film it wouldn’t matter, because I wanted to hear the stories anyway.”
Travelling the country, he interviewed 40 pub owners, all third generation publicans. The characters he meets are a charming group ofstorytellers and eccentrics, whose personalities shine thanks to the understated directing. Fegan puts the naturalism of the interviews down to his guerilla interview style.
“Most of the pubs, I didn’t warn them or call, I just went on the day. Because if you call, people might get dressed up beforehand and you just want it natural. And I just went in on my own, which I think helped immeasurably. If you have a camera man and lighting guys and a crew, people can get intimidated, butit was just me with two lights going, ‘Can I ask you some questions?’ So there was no reluctance.”
As conversations meander from poetry to playwrights, from the personal to political, the sense of the pubs’ connections to history is incredible.
“You could have told the entire of history of Ireland through anecdotes,” Fegan agrees. “Everything from Oliver Cromwell, to Michael Collins having a pint, to Churchill playing marbles on the floor of The Hole in the Wall, to army invasions, to Mary Robinson visiting. These pubs are theatres and cultural museums that have accumulated all these stories and anecdotes and the pub owners are the curators.
They’ve heard these stories from their parents and grandparents and so they cherish them. It’s like if Michael Collins was in your living room - you’d brag about it, so they do.”

The Irish Pub is in cinemas from October 4