An Crisis

For the past ten years Setanta de Paor has been acting director of an obscure Irish language organisation called ACT (An Chomhairle Teanga). Setanta is a mild mannered man who has always believed in the path of least resistance. A conciliator par excellence who has got where he is by keeping his head down. But now, in the downturn, ACT has come under scrutiny and threat of closure. The appointment of a new minister who went to school with Setanta and always disliked him makes matters worse. Setanta and his team push the various projects they’ve been funding into the spotlight in an effort to justify their existence. The projects range from intense young filmmakers to passionate promoters of the Ulster Scots language and culture to very unorthodox GAA stars and volatile sean-nós singers. And if that was not enough, the temperature gets turned up when Setanta inherits a parrot reputed to be able to recite every word of the famous, but unread, Irish novel "Cré na Cille" Throughout it all, Setanta struggles manfully to hold it all together helped, and more often hindered, by his staff and the cultural sacred cows they have chosen to fund.