Remembering Paddy Cahill - a unique filmmaker celebrated

It is difficult to express Paddy Cahill's contribution to the culture of Irish art and architecture.

Over the weekend, the architecture and film communities were devastated to learn of the death of this young filmmaker. The most humblest of men faced his illness head on with the same dignity and wisdom far beyond his years as seen in his documentaries.

The topics of his documentaries were diverse from buildings and cycling to contemporary artists and even pigeons, but what they had in common was that they celebrated the underrated extraordinary around us.

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Paddy was a true champion of the underdog, challenging our perceptions with a beautiful gentleness that yet pulsed with his passion for the endurance of these buildings and their stories.

In each of his films he gives the subject, be it a building or a person, the space to speak for themselves. This is what he was like as a person; a great listener with an unhuman capacity for generosity.

Paddy made the journey to the other side peacefully at home on Friday 9th April, in the arms of his wife Jonia. We will probably never know how important her support was in him completing his final films.

He would hate the idea of this tribute to him and his legacy. He even tried to halt this article's delivery by causing a sudden power outage in Dublin 7... but you will have to try harder than that, Paddy, to stop us turning the focus on all that you gave to the world.

Paddy Cahill - 6 Essential Works

Liberty Hall

Paddy's documenting of Irish architecture started with a film on Liberty Hall which aired on RTÉ 1 in May 2009. Paddy first decided to make the documentary in late 2006 after a visit to the building during the Open House Dublin festival. SIPTU, who own the building had just announced plans to demolish and replace it, and hundreds of people had turned out what they thought to be a last chance to get inside. Paddy would become a loud voice in the campaign to save Liberty Hall.

The film features interviews with the architect Desmond Rea O'Kelly, Ellen Rowley, Des Geraghty, Theo Dorgan and Shane O’Toole - it would be the start of an incredible collaboration between Paddy and Shane. Paddy, like a writer, had found his style, with exquisite still photography mediating with exhilarating time lapses, where light and human interaction waltz with the building. Already, he had the knack for eliciting candour from people in front of the camera, as if he were a life-long friend.

After Desmond Rea O’Kelly’s death in 2011, his niece (who inherited his estate) contacted Paddy asking if he wanted his Liberty Hall archive. Paddy called in the help of Shane O’Toole and they put it in safe keeping with the Irish Architectural Archive for the benefit of future generations.

Two Working Men

At the time of making Liberty Hall, Paddy later regretted not including the story of Oisín Kelly's sculpture Two Working Men. Here, Paddy showcases another undervalued artist; the sculpture was commissioned to be sited outside Liberty Hall but due to some political interference it ended up outside Cork County Hall, where they have since become known as Cha and Miah. Again, this film includes a fantastic clip with the late Desmond Rea O’Kelly capturing the essence of the two working men.

13 Women

Paddy first started working with artist Amanda Coogan in the early noughties on a series of tv programmes about the Deaf community in Ireland, entitled Hands On. The duo collaborated on a number of projects, including Long Now, a remarkable one-hour documentary filmed during her six-week residency at the RHA Gallery in 2015.

Paddy's film of her performance piece 13 Women in the Hugh Lane Gallery is, in Coogan's own words, "an outstanding example of our two practices merging and singing together".

Herbert Simms City

This film is a hauntingly beautiful ode to the architect Herbert Simms, on the occasion on the 120th anniversary of his birth in 2018. Simms designed 17,000 homes to deal with the housing crisis of Dublin of the early decades of the 20th century.

It perfectly captures the elegance of these buildings, utilising Nell Regen's poem Owning the Sky and original music by Irene Buckley.

Cycling With...

This series of almost twenty films made between 2012 and 2014 was part of Paddy's cycling advocacy. As he said himself, 'We believe that by showing this social side of cycling, bike use will increase and cities will become better places to live in’.

The novel interview style seems to get so much more out of a speaker, as, distracted by the act of cycling, they open up to Paddy about their lives. You can watch all the films in the series here.

Hendrons Building, Dublin

In January of this year, impassioned by a planning application for the Hendrons Building in Dublin, Paddy made this film that he narrates, detailing what makes this overlooked building precious in his own words.

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Watch more of Paddy Cahill's work here.

Remembering Paddy Cahill - a unique filmmaker celebrated

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