Tonight, the IFI will be screening 80s film Hush-A-Bye Baby. The film features the acting debut of a young Sinéad O’Connor who also wrote the musical score.

Hush-A-Bye Baby sets the scene of a 1980s Derry. Goretti Friel (Emer McCourt) is an impressionable Irish teen. She meets Ciarán (Michael Liebmann) and a romance soon blossoms. When he is arrested and imprisoned by the British army, Goretti is dismayed to find herself pregnant. She tries to contact her boyfriend in British prison but her letters are not allowed through to him because she writes in Irish. Goretti is left to deal with the crisis alone, tormented by the conflicts of her growing belly and the influence of a Catholic upbringing. In her first feature, Margo Harkin creates an engaging drama about a group of smart and likeable young women dealing with a crisis for which there are no easy solutions.

Hush-A-Bye Baby was co-written by Margo Harkin and Stephanie English and was directly influenced by the moral panic which beset Ireland during the first abortion referendum in 1983. Makes for a very fitting viewing in line with the current Repeal the 8th referendum.

Get down early to avoid disappointment.