A Call To Arts

Synopsis

The life and artistic legacy of an extraordinary couple, the Connecticut-born artist Helen Hooker and her husband, Irish revolutionary and historian Ernie O'Malley, is explored by their son Cormac O'Malley. The couple made major contributions to a modernist arts scene in a newly independent Ireland in the 1930s and '40s: she was involved in sculpture, theatre and photography; while he made a living as an author, writing extensively about his role in the Irish War of independence and Civil War. Cormac interviews historians, arts commentators and people who knew his parents, to discover the political and cultural impact of their endeavours.