Radical Hearts

Combining talking head testimony with elegantly recreated scenes, this extraordinary, daring documentary tells the previously unheard story of how women who loved other women contributed to the fight for Irish independence from the British Empire. A vital contribution to charting an essential gay history of Ireland, Croíthe Radacacha (which is translated as ‘radical hearts’) depicts lesbians at the heart of the Irish revolution as uncompromising in their politics, committed to feminism, socialism and equal rights. Many would take arms in the struggle and many would die. Ciara Hyland’s film nobly revives their memory and acknowledges their courage.