Tuam filmmaker hopes his journey will help others ‘find the dawn’
Screening in Galway
THE award-winning documentary produced by Tuam native Tomás Hardiman will have a special screening in Galway’s Town Hall Theatre next week.
The documentary, The Days of Trees, was voted Best Documentary of 2024 at the Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTAs) last April. Tomás favours being behind the camera but on this occasion faces the lens to bravely tell of his childhood abuse while attending a Christian Brother school in the town.
The documentary, which Tomás explains he “didn’t set out to make” is directed by his friend and colleague Alan Gilsenan.
Speaking to The Tuam Herald, Tomás tells how he only began to remember parts of his early childhood when he was aged 56. He’s now 65.
“It happens to a child who has suffered abuse, their memory freezes. The experience can be so overwhelming that they can’t experience the experience and it gets put back to an ancestral part of the brain,” explains Tomás.
He began to remember thanks to therapy work with psychotherapists Mike Frawley and Ivor Browne.
The documentary was highly praised by former President Mary McAleese and was also viewed at the Vatican – although Tomás didn’t receive any response from those who watched it there.”
This is the first time since the IFTAs that the documentary will be shown in Galway and having it up on a big screen in his home territory, giggles his nerves again.
Discovering those hidden memories has been both traumatic and healing for Tomás and making such an honest and heartfelt film has been therapeutic and restorative for him.
In the film, Tomás mentions how a person needs to “face the dark to find the dawn” but he accepts that many of those who were abused as a child can be lost in the dark. He doesn’t see himself as an activist but would urge anyone in a similar situation to himself to find a safe person to speak to in confidence.
“It’s ok to speak about it but we need to be careful who we speak to. Tell someone who you can trust, that’s the most important thing. My memories were private, I never thought they would be public.”
Tomás grew up in Church View in Tuam and worked in the Arts in Galway and Dublin for decades.“For me the journey I’ve taken has been the hardest ever but the benefits from it have been enormous in terms of my healing. It would never have happened without making the film.”
The documentary has had an impact on others – people who know him and those who didn’t until they saw the film. “This is me telling my own story and it’s the only thing I’ve a right to do. Hopefully it will help others to finally speak to that one person first.”
The Days of Trees will be presented in a special Q&A screening at the Town Hall Theatre, Galway on Tuesday, January 21 at 8pm.