On Nov. 4, there was a film screening of “The Boys of St. Columb’s” in the Romita Auditorium of Ryan Library. Iona College officials invited Irish author and co-producer of the film Maurice Fitzpatrick to talk about his film.

Fitzpatrick graduated from Trinity College, and he has been teaching and writing in Tokyo for six years.

“I suppose I’m a writer myself, so I was very interested in the writings of Seamus Dean, Ian McCann, and Seamus Heaney as I was growing up, especially during school,” Fitzpatrick said.

When he was reading the pieces of those Irish writers and poets, his interest in North Ireland’s history and political life was stirred up.

“Through reading those writers, I started to get a grip of Derry as very fascinating, peculiar, political life back in the 60s. But personally, interviewing Seamus Dean for a journal in Japan where I lived for part of the year, and some of the comments he was making about the revolutionary consequence of their getting an education, this generation, as a result of the 1947 education act, I think that really was the catalyst for me to sit down and write the film,” Fitzpatrick said.

“The Boys of St. Columb’s” is the story about the first generation of children who received free secondary education. This education system was founded in the 1947 Education Act in Northern Ireland. The film shows how the political and historical situations of Northern Ireland changed because of the mass education of its population, culminating in the Civil Rights Movement of the late 1960s which was inspired from the United States.

There are 8 people in the film who were former students of the St. Columb’s boys. They are Seamus Heaney, John Hume, singer & songwriter Phil Coulter, writer Seamus Deane, singer & songwriter Paul Brady, civil rights campaigner Eamonn McCann, Irish ambassador James Sharkey, and retired Bishop of Derry, Edward Daly.

John Hume and Seamus Heaney were Nobel Prize Winners, which made St. Columb’s College very proud of. Hume was the winner in Peace and Heaney was the winner in Literature.

Fitzpatrick discussed how the film was not always easy to make. “There were some difficulties with making the film, of course. Funding was one issue, the credit crunch happened during production…. In fact one of the funding bodies did renege on us a portion of their committed money. Other issues were, well, I live in Japan, and I had to commute that year five times. I was living in Japan and coming back to make different segments of this film, and negotiating contracts over time zones without meeting people clearly brought a lot of difficulties,” Fitzpatrick said.

Although the procedure of writing the film did not go smoothly and there were ordeals in funding, Fitzpatrick’s passion and faith kept his endurance and eventually made him overcome the problems.

Fitzpatrick hopes that people will be inspired by the film and take away the message that anyone can and should receive an education.

“I think Seamus Dean puts it very succinctly – through education, downtrodden people can find a way to get their voice heard and there is no reason just because you are a minority (a certain gender, a certain color, a certain creed) doesn’t mean you must continue to accept exclusion if that’s what seems to be prevalent in your society,” Fitzpatrick said. “Not at all, you can do something by gathering, by clamoring for change, and by putting forward very reasonable demands to people maybe at the outset aren’t reasonable themselves, but there is the capacity for change, and education is maybe the most effective tool for that.”