This short meditation from Chapter Two of Richard Clements' StoryMakers project explores memory, loss and the comforting power of music during difficult times. It centres on an older Belfast man's memories of Donnybrook Street – a close-knit terrace off the Lisburn Road where everyone knew each other. His mother's declining health, caused by childhood illness, quietly unfolds in his memories: the parlour bed, the doctors who couldn't help and the morning he sat alone on the stairs, grappling with her absence. Grief and resilience intertwine as a father, shaped by his own misfortune, is left to raise a son alone. Every morning, even in winter, the radio crackled to life, later replaced by a transistor radio gifted by the subject's father with a tiny earpiece, arriving just as the sixties burst into song. Donnybrook captures the coexistence of loss and joy in memory and how a life's soundtrack holds what words can't express.

The storyteller is the father of filmmaker Richard Clements, making the film a family affair in every sense. "My Dad claimed he didn't have a story in him – I'm more drawn to those who make that claim!" says Clements. "His account of the loss of his mother at such a young age is heartbreaking. The loss of innocence, the discovery of music as a healer – it all speaks to what this whole project is about for me: the personal connections becoming universal in their power." His father's record collection fed into Clements' own love of music as escape, and with his sister and nephew also appearing in the film, he describes it as "the most wonderfully creative family experience as well." 

For Margaret Elizabeth Jane Ferguson and Thomas Smyth

Performers
Ethan Birkett
Ashleigh Smyth Birkett
Richard Clements

Music & Sound Design
Richard Clements

Director
Tristan Crowe

• Richard Clements
• StoryMakers Chapter 2