Director to make NI Troubles drama

12:06am Friday 16th May 2008

Acclaimed film director Jim Sheridan plans to make a major television drama series which he says will hammer a nail into the coffin of the conflict in Northern Ireland.

The Dubliner, best known for his Oscar-winning movie My Left Foot, said he is talking with renowned Belfast film director and screenwriter Terry George about working together on the script.

The pair have teamed up before on widely-lauded films about the conflict including In The Name Of The Father, The Boxer - both starring Daniel Day-Lewis - and Some Mother's Son.

Sheridan said it was an ambition of his to mark an end to The Troubles with a television series that would help Ireland and the wider world understand what led to the decades of murder and violence.

"Everybody goes 'Don't make a movie about the North' - I say only make a movie about the North," he said.

"I think there's a need for a (television) series to put a coffin nail on the way you think about what the North became.

"If we could get six inch nails and hammer them into the coffin so that particular vampire never came out again, we would be doing a service."

The six-time Academy Award nominee said he had been talking "quite a bit" with George, who directed the critically-acclaimed Hotel Rwanda, about a drama series dealing with how the conflict erupted.

Sheridan said he would make the television series with George but added that raising enough finance could be difficult for a story that the rest of the world believes has moved on.

"It's a big commitment. You wouldn't get a lot of money for it because it's a little corner of the world and a problem that's over. But just for me, that's the kind of thing I'd like to see," he said.

News in brief