Since he was a young man, Pat McCarthy always embraced an escape from farming for a “couple of hours of daftness”. This was mostly on stage with Kilmeen Drama Group after his initial foray into theatrics with Macra.
Community theatre is just part and parcel of life in Rossmore in west Cork. Rehearsals fill the long, winter nights before the local annual drama festival heralds the arrival of spring every March.
Summer arrives with, hopefully, qualification for the RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival in Athlone, which fittingly Kilmeen won last weekend.
Naturally enough, Pat’s son Brian couldn’t escape the lure of treading the boards when it was all around him. “I’d say the earliest you brought me was five or six,” he recalls, smiling in his father’s direction. “I was up at the front of the theatre, watching [rehearsals].
And apart from little things, the first time I was actually on stage in a proper part was The Field by John B Keane, and Dad, you were also in it. But our characters never crossed.”
Despite being in many productions locally and on the amateur drama circuit and All Ireland Finals in the years that followed, the Cork father and son never got to share a stage together. When Pat stepped in at the last minute to play an older farmer character in a short film that Brian was featuring in in Co Mayo, the pair relished the experience.
“I remember being on the film set [of A Passing Place] and thinking, this is class. We’re actually here together on set. This is the closest thing we’ve ever come to, you know, being there and acting together,” recalls Brian.
“And it was in the car on the way home that day that I just thought, you know what? I have to make something; I have to write something that me and Dad can be in together, where it’s about us.”
The first idea was a play but then he thought that the “added amazingness of a film is that we have this forever”, and that’s the essence of where Culchie, a 16-minute comedy short, came from.
When Irish Country Living jokes that Pat had no choice in the matter, he smiles saying that he was “up for it from the beginning” in a lovely west Cork lilt. On what it was like working with his son on the big screen, he adds: “I found it easier than working with anybody else.”
With director Richard Lennon of Darn Skippy Productions at the helm, funding from Kildare County Council secured and bolstered by a GoFund Me effort supported by the local community, the film dream snowballed to become a reality. The production was shot over three days in the summer of 2024 in the familiar scenic surroundings of their farm at Kildee, Dunmanway.
Pat McCarthy and his son Brian, whose professional acting name is Brian Denis Matthew star in Culchie, set on Pat's farm in Kildee, Dunmanway, Co Cork. \ Odhran Ducie
Cow cameo
It is billed as a short comedy drama about leaving the world you knew to start the life you want. Brian says the premise is “loosely inspired by their lives” and a point in time which has been dramatised and changed.
The story centres on Luke and his girlfriend, who are about to break some big news about their future to his farmer dad. “I decided to make it about the moment that I first told Dad that, you know what, I’m moving away. I’m never going to take over the family farm,” explains Brian, who left full-time teaching in recent years to become a professional actor, writer and producer (he still does substitute teaching in between jobs). His professional name is Brian Denis Matthew.
That dilemma of how to tell his father and find a way to follow his own path has been turned into a playful and funny film with a very touching father/son relationship at its core. Not forgetting Daisy, the cow, either, who enjoys a scene-stealing cameo.
Pat explains that Daisy was actually two cows, the last of the stock he would have bred from, so there was a real attachment to the animals involved.
Actor and writer Brian Denis Matthew and his father Pat McCarthy star in Culchie, set on the family farm in Dunmanway, Co Cork. \ Odhran Ducie
New York to Naas
Director Richard Lennon, who grew up in New York but is now based in Naas, Co Kildare, where he has a production company with his wife Roseanne Lynch, quips that there was some nervousness shooting with animals, but Daisy was a dream.
“I keep making this joke, but it was totally true: Daisy was one of the best actors I’ve ever worked with. She was absolutely fantastic, super easygoing; you know, she did whatever I asked of her,” he says, laughing.
Even though Pat admits they took a “left-field interpretation” of succession expectations, he believes it’s a universal story that is not easy to solve and will resonate with a lot of people. It also shows his character had dreams away from the farm that may never have occurred to the younger generation.
“A lot of farmers are presumed to be farmers from day one. That’s not necessarily the case in life,” observes Pat. “It’s difficult,” he says of a farming life, “but for the right person, it is not. It is a lovely way of life.”
Culchie has already connected with audiences at the Cork International Film Festival, where it premiered last November, which was an “absolute dream” for the writer, winning Best Cork Short and the Audience Award for short films. It was also a Redbreast UNHIDDEN Short Award nominee 2025.
Now, it is set to be screened in the Zones Portuaires Film Festival this week in Saint Nazaire, France, and at the Fastnet Film Festival in Schull from 21-23 May.
Richard, who also composed the music and edited the film, is delighted with the reaction so far and believes the universal father/son dynamic it depicts means it has wide appeal beyond Ireland.
“It’s a story that could be anywhere, really. It’s lovely that it’s in Ireland, but it’s definitely a scenario that’s the same the world over in ways,” he muses.
Actor and writer Brian Denis Matthew and his father Pat McCarthy with director Richard Lennon on the farm in Cork.
\ Odhran Ducie
Farmers are under-represented on Irish TV and film down through the years, and when they are featured, they are often made fun of, according to Brian. He points to the country lad or girl often being “the butt of the joke”, but in Culchie they were conscious they celebrated real characters from country life.
That authenticity is something Richard also focuses on, juxtaposed with the dream-like sequences that show the son’s inner machinations and fears about telling his father he’s leaving the farm. “I usually find farming and pretty much anything to do with the pastoral world is just like so easily romanticised or stereotyped, usually the latter or made like really fantastical in films, like the farmer from Babe or out of a storybook,” comments Richard.
“A lot of times they’re not meant to look real. It’s always this exaggeration.”
He is looking forward to Culchie appearing at Fastnet, which he describes as one of the “friendliest and nicest festivals” on the circuit where there will be three free screenings as part of Program 23 at The Adelphi at the Parish Hall on 21 May at 4pm, 22 May at 6pm in The Satellite Centre at the Old Boys’ School and at 10.30am on 23 May at The Palace in Schull Harbour Hotel.
What started out as a passion project for Brian with his dad in Cork is now spreading its wings, and when asked his ultimate ambition for the project, the writer and actor is quick to reply that he’d like to get it streaming.
“We would love to get it out there and just get as many eyeballs on it as possible. After that, we’re just glad to have made it. I’m just glad to have it. It’s going to be something to hold on to and pass down from generation to generation,” he concludes.
See fastnetfilmfestival.com
Since he was a young man, Pat McCarthy always embraced an escape from farming for a “couple of hours of daftness”. This was mostly on stage with Kilmeen Drama Group after his initial foray into theatrics with Macra.
Community theatre is just part and parcel of life in Rossmore in west Cork. Rehearsals fill the long, winter nights before the local annual drama festival heralds the arrival of spring every March.
Summer arrives with, hopefully, qualification for the RTÉ All Ireland Drama Festival in Athlone, which fittingly Kilmeen won last weekend.
Naturally enough, Pat’s son Brian couldn’t escape the lure of treading the boards when it was all around him. “I’d say the earliest you brought me was five or six,” he recalls, smiling in his father’s direction. “I was up at the front of the theatre, watching [rehearsals].
And apart from little things, the first time I was actually on stage in a proper part was The Field by John B Keane, and Dad, you were also in it. But our characters never crossed.”
Despite being in many productions locally and on the amateur drama circuit and All Ireland Finals in the years that followed, the Cork father and son never got to share a stage together. When Pat stepped in at the last minute to play an older farmer character in a short film that Brian was featuring in in Co Mayo, the pair relished the experience.
“I remember being on the film set [of A Passing Place] and thinking, this is class. We’re actually here together on set. This is the closest thing we’ve ever come to, you know, being there and acting together,” recalls Brian.
“And it was in the car on the way home that day that I just thought, you know what? I have to make something; I have to write something that me and Dad can be in together, where it’s about us.”
The first idea was a play but then he thought that the “added amazingness of a film is that we have this forever”, and that’s the essence of where Culchie, a 16-minute comedy short, came from.
When Irish Country Living jokes that Pat had no choice in the matter, he smiles saying that he was “up for it from the beginning” in a lovely west Cork lilt. On what it was like working with his son on the big screen, he adds: “I found it easier than working with anybody else.”
With director Richard Lennon of Darn Skippy Productions at the helm, funding from Kildare County Council secured and bolstered by a GoFund Me effort supported by the local community, the film dream snowballed to become a reality. The production was shot over three days in the summer of 2024 in the familiar scenic surroundings of their farm at Kildee, Dunmanway.
Pat McCarthy and his son Brian, whose professional acting name is Brian Denis Matthew star in Culchie, set on Pat's farm in Kildee, Dunmanway, Co Cork. \ Odhran Ducie
Cow cameo
It is billed as a short comedy drama about leaving the world you knew to start the life you want. Brian says the premise is “loosely inspired by their lives” and a point in time which has been dramatised and changed.
The story centres on Luke and his girlfriend, who are about to break some big news about their future to his farmer dad. “I decided to make it about the moment that I first told Dad that, you know what, I’m moving away. I’m never going to take over the family farm,” explains Brian, who left full-time teaching in recent years to become a professional actor, writer and producer (he still does substitute teaching in between jobs). His professional name is Brian Denis Matthew.
That dilemma of how to tell his father and find a way to follow his own path has been turned into a playful and funny film with a very touching father/son relationship at its core. Not forgetting Daisy, the cow, either, who enjoys a scene-stealing cameo.
Pat explains that Daisy was actually two cows, the last of the stock he would have bred from, so there was a real attachment to the animals involved.
Actor and writer Brian Denis Matthew and his father Pat McCarthy star in Culchie, set on the family farm in Dunmanway, Co Cork. \ Odhran Ducie
New York to Naas
Director Richard Lennon, who grew up in New York but is now based in Naas, Co Kildare, where he has a production company with his wife Roseanne Lynch, quips that there was some nervousness shooting with animals, but Daisy was a dream.
“I keep making this joke, but it was totally true: Daisy was one of the best actors I’ve ever worked with. She was absolutely fantastic, super easygoing; you know, she did whatever I asked of her,” he says, laughing.
Even though Pat admits they took a “left-field interpretation” of succession expectations, he believes it’s a universal story that is not easy to solve and will resonate with a lot of people. It also shows his character had dreams away from the farm that may never have occurred to the younger generation.
“A lot of farmers are presumed to be farmers from day one. That’s not necessarily the case in life,” observes Pat. “It’s difficult,” he says of a farming life, “but for the right person, it is not. It is a lovely way of life.”
Culchie has already connected with audiences at the Cork International Film Festival, where it premiered last November, which was an “absolute dream” for the writer, winning Best Cork Short and the Audience Award for short films. It was also a Redbreast UNHIDDEN Short Award nominee 2025.
Now, it is set to be screened in the Zones Portuaires Film Festival this week in Saint Nazaire, France, and at the Fastnet Film Festival in Schull from 21-23 May.
Richard, who also composed the music and edited the film, is delighted with the reaction so far and believes the universal father/son dynamic it depicts means it has wide appeal beyond Ireland.
“It’s a story that could be anywhere, really. It’s lovely that it’s in Ireland, but it’s definitely a scenario that’s the same the world over in ways,” he muses.
Actor and writer Brian Denis Matthew and his father Pat McCarthy with director Richard Lennon on the farm in Cork.
\ Odhran Ducie
Farmers are under-represented on Irish TV and film down through the years, and when they are featured, they are often made fun of, according to Brian. He points to the country lad or girl often being “the butt of the joke”, but in Culchie they were conscious they celebrated real characters from country life.
That authenticity is something Richard also focuses on, juxtaposed with the dream-like sequences that show the son’s inner machinations and fears about telling his father he’s leaving the farm. “I usually find farming and pretty much anything to do with the pastoral world is just like so easily romanticised or stereotyped, usually the latter or made like really fantastical in films, like the farmer from Babe or out of a storybook,” comments Richard.
“A lot of times they’re not meant to look real. It’s always this exaggeration.”
He is looking forward to Culchie appearing at Fastnet, which he describes as one of the “friendliest and nicest festivals” on the circuit where there will be three free screenings as part of Program 23 at The Adelphi at the Parish Hall on 21 May at 4pm, 22 May at 6pm in The Satellite Centre at the Old Boys’ School and at 10.30am on 23 May at The Palace in Schull Harbour Hotel.
What started out as a passion project for Brian with his dad in Cork is now spreading its wings, and when asked his ultimate ambition for the project, the writer and actor is quick to reply that he’d like to get it streaming.
“We would love to get it out there and just get as many eyeballs on it as possible. After that, we’re just glad to have made it. I’m just glad to have it. It’s going to be something to hold on to and pass down from generation to generation,” he concludes.
See fastnetfilmfestival.com
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