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The Scaffolder Falls

(Johnny Gogan, 2009, 8min)

Adapted from Johnny Gogan's song of the same title performed by Cathal Coughlan, this short film employs live action and animation in its tale of a scaffolder remembering how he once defied gravity to scale the heights of Dublin City. He builds a tower that does not need to touch the ground before he disappears into a labyrinth beneath the city's Parnell Square.

I was walking through Dublin’s Parnell Square one afternoon when I came upon this guy. He must have been about fifty and he was kneeling on the footpath as if facing towards mecca in prayer. He lifted his head when I approached him. I could see by the cement on his clothes and in his hair that he had come from a building site, albeit via the pub. When I asked him if he was ok he simply replied: “I am a scaffolder”. He wasn’t much for talking after that, but it got me thinking and I subsequently wrote the song. The writer Dermot Healy had once told me about the virtues of the plotless film, an idea which he in turn I believe had got from the writer Aidan Higgins. Dermot, who was still with us at that time, but sadly no more, was very much in mind as I wrote the song and went about making the subsequent film.