Fiona McPhillips is an award-winning journalist, author, and screenwriter.
She's just published her debut novel When We Were Silent, an exploration of power, corruption and retribution at an exclusive private school in Dublin.
We asked Fiona for her choice cultural picks...
FILM
Probably my favourite Irish film of the last year or so is Luke McManus' stunning documentary, North Circular. It follows the artery through the heart of north inner city Dublin, from the Phoenix Park to East Wall, finding musical histories at every turn. It’s a genuinely moving piece of audiovisual art, all the more special for those of us who live nearby. It’s still on tour around Europe, hopefully returning to Irish screens in the summer.
Also worth a mention is Sinéad O’Shea’s gripping and inspirational documentary, Pray For Our Sinners, which follows Mary and Paddy Randals who campaigned for decades against the brutality of the Catholic Church, rescuing pregnant girls from the horror of the mother and baby homes. It’s an intimate and nuanced portrayal of resistance and well worth a watch if you can catch it online.
MUSIC
If I’m going to be completely honest (those Spotify stats don’t lie), the album I’ve listened to most in the last year is Lana Del Rey’s Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. It’s a quieter, more introspective take on her sweeping, cinematic sounds, punctuated by some darker, experimental interludes. I’m already looking forward to her next album Lasso, out in September.
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I’ve also been unapologetically indulging in some of the great 80s indie bands featured in my debut novel, When We Were Silent – The Cure, The Smiths, The Fall, Violent Femmes, Depeche Mode. Sure, why wouldn’t you?
BOOK
Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting is my book of 2024 already. It beguiled and devastated me over and over and I’m still trying to piece it all together weeks later. It’s both brilliantly funny and deeply sad and it’s the sort of book that makes you want to be a better writer, to try to reach that level of masterful plotting and character development. In Skippy Dies, he proved his skill in writing about the confusions and comedy of young adulthood but The Bee Sting brings this to another level, exploring the power dynamics between parents and children and the unspoken shame that holds us all in its thrall.
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I’ve been a great fan of Emma Donoghue’s writing over the years, so it was thrilling to get to see her novel The Pull of the Stars adapted for stage with an all-female cast including India Mullen, who brilliantly narrated the When We Were Silent audiobook. It's set in a Dublin hospital in 1918 during the Spanish Flu epidemic and it follows the stories of those caring and afflicted on a hospital ward. It also brings Kathleen Lynn into focus, a suffragette, nationalist and activist who fought in the Easter Rising. It’s great to see the crucial role women played during war times given due recognition on stage. A sensitive and heartfelt production.
TV
I don’t have a huge amount of time for TV anymore but I am hooked on Baby Reindeer, Richard Gadd’s Netflix adaptation of his one-man play which deals with mental health issues, trauma and abuse. It’s based on Gadd’s real life experience of being stalked and sexually assaulted in his twenties and it’s so uncomfortably personal, I can’t look away.
GIG
Hak Baker's show in Whelans last September is one that will stay in my heart for a long time. I’ve been a huge fan of his soulful self-styled G-folk since his debut EP Misfits in 2017, so much so that I put the track Like It Or Lump It in When We Were Silent. I like to think that one day Hak will be moved to read a book about institutional abuse of power at a Dublin school and have a little smile to himself when he stumbles across it.
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In terms of upcoming gigs, I happen to be in possession of four golden tickets for the Aviva on the 29th of June. If you know, you know. (And even if you’ve actively tried to avoid it, you probably still know!)
ART
The Douglas Hyde Gallery continues to be one of the most consistently inventive galleries in the city. Following on from the giant 3-D printed Medici Lion by Siobhán Hapaksa comes this timely interrogation into our farming practices and biodiversity by Deirdre O’Mahony. The culmination of three years’ work, it includes a cattle feeder in the gallery and a stunning film complete with a libretto intermingling the sounds of human and nature, alert to the co-dependency which binds our futures. You don’t know what you’ve got 'til it’s gone. The Quickening runs until 26th June.
RADIO
I’ve been a big fan of DJ and writer Kate Butler since her early days at Power FM in the 90s. Her radio show on DDR, a mixture of bass-heavy dance music and experimental electronica, is always fascinating and she is responsible for Atomic, a series on DDR that gives young people an opportunity to host their own show. Atomic has also collaborated with Dublin City Music Generation to develop a schools programme to teach girls about music technology.
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I’m also really excited for Kate’s upcoming radio documentary about women pop producers, This is a Story about Control, which will delve into the studio work of Mariah Carey, Kate Bush, Enya and Sinéad O'Connor.
TECH
Take the Internet away from me, please! I’ll keep my Kindle connected but I’ll happily disconnect from everything else for a while. Honestly, the best piece of tech I’ve got in the last while is the air fryer my son bought me for Christmas. I don’t even use it much but the kids do and anything that reduces the burden of cooking gets the thumbs up from me.
THE NEXT BIG THING...
A dismantling of the patriarchy. We’re working on it, anyway.
When We Were Silent is published by Bantam
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