Fifties drama Mary Rose, starring Zara Devlin, already attracting industry buzzColm Bairéad, left, directs Zara Devlin on Brighton Square in Rathgar, Dublin, for his 1950s-set film, Mary Rose. Photograph: Enda Bowe Fri Aug 28 2026 - 06:00 • 4 MIN READWaking up this week, some Dublin residents could have been forgiven for thinking they had been transported back in time.Nuns in white wimples and women in 1950s-style headscarves and mid-calf-length skirts strolled down York Avenue in Rathmines. Vintage black saloon cars with chrome bumpers rattled around Brighton Square, Rathgar, and a vintage Leyland Titan double-decker bus in green and cream livery, bearing advertisements for “Kennedy’s Bread”, parked by the triangular green, brushing against treetops.As a letter from Strand Films pushed through their letterboxes a few weeks earlier indicated, Colm Bairéad was quietly – or as quietly as is possible with a crew of more than 100 – filming scenes from his eagerly awaited new film, Mary Rose, in locations in and around Dublin.It’s the director’s first film since the Oscar- and Bafta-nominated An Cailín Ciúin catapulted him to international renown and made a star of his young lead, Catherine Clinch. As with that feature, Mary Rose – his first in English – is being produced by Cleona Ní Chrualaoí; the pair are a husband-and-wife team.“An Cailín Ciúin was an extraordinary journey for us, myself and Cleona,” Bairéad says on a short break between set-ups on Brighton Square, where dozens of crew, headphones clamped to ears, are milling about, blocking out scenes between takes, one wearing a “Cailíní” T-shirt. A handful of extras in 1950s clothing linger by the bus, one with her slip-on shoes cast aside on the pavement, a testament to the long hours of film-making.“Embarking on our next film was always going to be a little bit daunting. With An Cailín Ciúin it was extraordinary to have the foundation of [the short story] Foster, Claire Keegan’s writing. I’m now relying on my own writing. But it was liberating to have total control over the story. This project is something that we’ve been working on for a few years and that we feel passionate about as a story.”Set in the 1950s, the film centres on Mary Kelly, whose rebellious twin sister, Rose, flees to England, leaving her behind to face a lifetime of duty and repression. “It’s a film that concerns itself with the liberties of women and how the State was so preoccupied by that in times gone by,” Bairéad says. “I feel like I’m channelling my grandmother and my own mother, who used to work in the Civil Service and who had to leave her job because she got married.”Zara Devlin plays both Mary and Rose. Known to audiences for her pivotal role in Small Things Like These, the acclaimed adaptation of Keegan’s 1980s-set novel – she played the girl locked in the coal shed of the local convent – she also starred in the 2022 dramatisation of the tragic story of Ann Lovett.“I was doing Translations in the Lyric Theatre, in Belfast, about five years ago when An Cailín Ciúin came out,” Devlin says between costume changes in a period house on Brighton Square, just a few doors from the birthplace of James Joyce, at number 41. “I remember seeing the film and thinking I have to find a way to work with that director. The way he films – the stillness and the silences – is something I’m really interested in. There’s something real and human about it.”Devlin was one of about a dozen actors asked to audition in Dublin and London last year for the lead role. “We auditioned her and we were blown away,” Bairéad says. “Similar to Catherine Clinch, when we auditioned her, I remember coming away thinking she had this sort of old soul. Zara will say herself that she feels she belongs to another era. She’s the heartbeat of the film.”Mary Rose was listed in May as one of the 15 buzziest titles from Cannes in Screen International, the leading trade magazine, after it was launched at the Cannes market in France by the film’s sales agent, mk2. “There’s a lot of belief in the project and a lot of people championing the project,” Ní Chrualaoí says. With backers that include Film4, Screen Ireland, RTÉ, mk2, Eurimages, IPR.VC and Screen Flanders, Mary Rose has secured distribution deals in territories that so far include France, the Benelux countries and, with Curzon and Break Out Pictures, Ireland and the UK.The five-week shoot, which began on July 27th, is due to end on September 2nd, with some of the Dublin and Wicklow locations – they will shoot next week in Blessington and Baltinglass – standing in for rural Co Clare, where the early part of the story is set, to save on filming costs.Ní Chrualaoí hopes that the independent film, an Irish-Belgian coproduction, will be released in cinemas at the end of 2027 or early in 2028.One Rathmines resident says she didn’t have to think twice when the crew approached her to see if they could use her home as a green room for three of the actors and the wall of her house as a backdrop for some filming.“Having loved the first film, I’m so excited to see it,” she says. “An Cailín Ciúin reached so many people and was such a huge hit. It being in the Oscars as well, it gave everyone a real lift.”IN THIS SECTION