Oidhche Sheanchais: A Ghostly Trip to the Irish Coast

Is this a movie? Maybe?

Honestly, watching Oidhche Sheanchais feels like peeking into a room you weren't invited to. You’ve got Tomas O' Diorain sitting by the fire, just talking. No big plot twists. No explosions. Just the rhythmic sound of Irish Gaelic and the crackle of a hearth.

If you need a movie to keep you awake with loud noises, this will bore you to tears. But if you’ve ever sat in a room that felt heavy with history, you might get why this matters. It’s the kind of thing you watch when you’re tired of the shiny, over-lit trash on streaming services.

The sea is the real lead here

The way they cut between the old man’s face—which has more lines than a topographic map—and the crashing, dark Atlantic is weirdly intense. You can almost feel the salt spray hitting the lens. It isn't polished. It’s raw. It feels like someone just decided to film the wind, and it worked.

The crowd sitting around him? They look like they’ve been there for a thousand years. It reminded me a bit of the atmosphere in Jane Eyre, though much grittier and way less concerned with manners. They don't look like actors. They look like people who actually know the taste of cold rain.

• That one moment where the firelight hits his beard is just… wow.
• The silence between his sentences is heavier than most movie dialogue.
• I spent five minutes wondering if the house was actually going to hold up in the wind.

It’s not a film that tries to explain itself to you. It doesn't care if you speak the language or know the myths. It just exists. It’s a sliver of a ghost, captured on film before the world got too loud and too fast.

I wouldn't call it a masterpiece, but it’s definitely something. It’s a strange, quiet piece of work that sticks in your head like a half-remembered dream. Sometimes you don't need a three-act structure. You just need a fire, a voice, and the sound of the ocean hitting the rocks. 🌊