Ireland is bruised and restless in the wake of Sinead O’Connor’s public denunciation of clerical abuse; private grief and public dissent press at every door. In a stark mother and baby home, Deirdre, a 16-year-old girl with shaved sides and chipped black nails, clutches her Walkman filled with mixed tapes like a rosary as she gives birth alone. A nurse with a crucifix captures the moment with a Polaroid, while the staff moves with the practiced efficiency of those trained to tidy away inconvenient lives. Adoption paperwork is already being prepared as Deirdre leaves, hollowed and furious, the Polaroid a thin yet irrefutable claim on what they intend to take from her.

Lona, 37, is sent to collect Deirdre. This task should be routine: drive the teenager from the gates of Bessborough in Cork straight back to Connemara to finalise the adoption papers, marking one last duty before Lona retreats to the convent on Lough Derg. However, Lona’s past complicates this straightforward journey. As a teen, she fronted a London Irish punk band called The Disruptors. Amidst a whirlwind of drinking and parties, she fell in love with Diarmuid. After his tragic overdose left her pregnant and addicted, Lona was taken in by Sister Claude’s home, where she got clean, surrendered her baby, and has carried the weight of guilt and shame ever since. Twenty years of convent obedience have steadied her life, but the noisy remnants of her past still resonate within her; her conviction is fraying. Thus, what should be a simple drive becomes fraught with emotional tension.

Their journey takes them through the picturesque yet haunting landscape of rural Ireland, characterised by inland villages, small shops, peat smoke, parish churches, and narrow lanes. Each early stop seems incidental, but soon the trip pivots dramatically: a prescription mix-up at Clooney’s Chemist swaps the proscribed sleeping pills for Vitamin D, leaving Deirdre completely alert and continuously stalling to buy more time. At The Loftus Lounge, Áine and a back room filled with line-dancing middle-aged women offer blunt yet tender support, tea, sandwiches, and an unyielding refusal to moralise. On a single-track lane, a slow puncture forces a stop at Deacy’s Garage, where a blind proprietor and his 21yr old grandson offer wry counsel and quiet reflection.

Between these waypoints, the car transforms into a confessional. Deirdre reveals that she slipped into the hospital nursery to breastfeed her baby, a secret that embodies both shame and fierce maternal instinct, turning the trip from procedural to deeply personal. Soon after, Deirdre’s condition deteriorates: postpartum trauma sets in, bringing bleeding, pain, and the agony of her leaking breasts, making the straight run to Connemara impossible. Lona, who initially planned only to return with signed papers, is compelled by urgency and compassion to seek practical help.

They veer toward the sea to Imbolc, Sister Marlene’s cottage in the Burren. As they arrive, the view opens up: from Imbolc, Galway Bay spills below, and across the water, Connemara rises on the far shore, a destination that has felt ephemeral until now. Marlene, a former nun in her late sixties, has traded clerical paperwork for apothecary jars and discreet midwifery. Her stone cottage, filled with herbs and music, offers care without the weight of bureaucracy. She tends to Deirdre’s bleeding, binds her wounds, soothes her discomfort, and applies herbal compresses, treating her trauma with tender professionalism. Imbolc becomes a liminal refuge, where immediate bodily needs are met while the machinery of adoption fades away amidst human presence and tactical delay.

Music serves as a thread that connects the three women. Marlene hums 1960s ballads and sean nós lullabies; Lona brings the clipped refrains and rebellious anthems of punk; and Deirdre’s inner soundtrack resonates with early ’90s grunge and the haunting melodies of Sinead O’Connor. They share songs like precious memories, building a collective vocabulary across generations. Lona’s punk past emerges as unexpected tenderness; the voice that once shouted against authority now uses her knowledge and fierce protectiveness to shelter a mother. Her own lost child and the death of Diarmuid fuel a particular ferocity, she cannot stand by while another life is at risk.

When they finally return across the bay toward Connemara, the unsightly 1980s bungalow on the mountainside awaits, boxy and flat against the wild landscape. Inside the “good room,” filled with stiff sofas and lace doilies, the family is assembled. Peggy sits primly in her armchair to the left of the fireplace; Tommy perches on a low footstool directly in front of the hearth; Stephen reclines regally in his throne-like armchair to the right, a broadsheet across his knees. Barbara meets them at the door with an expectant, hard expression. The household conversation quickly devolves into practical cruelty: talk of adoption, fear of scandal, and calculations about reputation.

Tommy’s presence fractures their tidy narrative. He and Deirdre exchange a private signal, a reminder of small rebellions shared throughout their childhood. Summoning her courage, Deirdre stands and declares, “I’m keeping the baby,” her words landing with the heaviness of a damp sod, scattering the fading embers of the Irish church-state and the society that were reared by it. The room erupts in chaos: Peggy pleads for practicality, Barbara catalogues the shame, and Stephen asserts duty like scripture, putting Deirdre and Lona’s resolve to the test.

This story is based on my lived experience as a teenage mother in Bessborough mother and baby home in the early 1990s. I refused to sign the adoption papers, was ostracized, but I kept my baby. My daughter Aoife is grown, married, and expecting her first child. I will be a grandmother. This is our story.

Music and Polaroid imagery roll over the end titles, culminating in The Disruptor’s uplifting conclusion: a child cherished, a mother embracing her journey, and three generations united by music and a shared commitment to redefine the narrative surrounding maternity and compassion.

Nora Ni Fhlatharta is an Irish screenwriter based in Galway. Born and raised on a small rocky farm in the west of Ireland as the youngest of ten, she was drawn to folklore, Púcaí, and the Sídhe that wandered the hills. Books became her refuge, and her teenage days spent in the Galway City Library fuelled a lifelong passion for stories and magic realism. Nora holds two undergraduate degrees: one in Arts with a major in English and History from the University of Galway and another in Fine Arts with a major in Sculpture and Installation from the Technical University of the Atlantic. Emersed in story and trained in fine art, she seasoned her skills in theatre production with Galway Youth Theatre and found her home tribe in film. She furthered her education with a Master’s in Digital Media from the Huston School of Film at the University of Galway (2007). Nora wrote, produced, and edited the BAI and TG4 Anamhaíocht special Ar Thoir ar Granuaile (In Search of Granuaile) 2008 and created multiple community-rooted shorts with Galway Film Centre. Since 2009, she has lectured in Film at the Technical University of the Shannon.

Nora is currently developing her feature screenplay The Disruptor, which draws upon her own experiences as a teenage mother hidden away in a mother-and-baby home at 18. The narrative follows Deirdre, a young woman grappling with her past and societal pressures as she fights to keep her baby against challenges posed by religion, family expectations, and the institutional difficulties of the home. Selected for the Stowe Facing in Facing Out Development Programme with the Galway Film Fleadh in 2025, The Disruptor captures the intricate dynamics of betrayal, identity, and resilience, illuminating the sacrifices women make in their pursuit of success. The screenplay was also honoured with the Law Firm of Stacey A. Davis & Stowe Story Labs Fellowship Honourable Mention for 2026. Nora has also been granted a Screen Ireland Bursary to bring the Disruptor to Stowe Narrative Labs in Stowe, Vermont, USA June 2026.

Nora is also developing her television series Selkies, created during the Winter of 2025/2026 as part of the Writers Room programme with Stowe Writers Labs, led by showrunners Dereck Simmons and David Pope. Selkies follows Amira, a sixteen-year-old Sudanese refugee with a saltwater soul, posing the question: Who belongs to which land, and what must we be willing to do to prove it? The series explores belonging both personally and politically, examining how communities choose to shelter the vulnerable. Grounded in Connemara realism, it balances quiet domestic truth with uncanny menace, centring on relationships: a fisherman who reads the sea better than people, a trauma-informed doctor who struggles with the supernatural, and a group of teenagers who must grow morally.

The tension of personal care versus institutional violence drives the drama, as each episode challenges viewers to choose whom they will protect and what compromises they will accept. At its heart, Amira’s search for identity refracts our understanding of belonging and survival in a world at odds between sea and land. Selkies aims to tell a story that is both intimate and epic—a Connemara community forced to choose courage over fear, with flawed teenagers becoming reluctant protectors while facing corporate oceanic power that weaponizes ecological outrage into violence.

Nora’s latest short screenplay, Optimum, delves into the psychological complexities of motherhood and the societal pressures women face. The narrative follows a character navigating the expectations imposed on her while she tries to maintain her identity amid overwhelming responsibilities. Through this story, Nora explores the struggle to balance nurturing roles with the darker aspects of life that often remain hidden, reflecting the untold narratives of many women today. Optimum highlights the challenges of personal care versus societal expectations, inviting audiences to confront the nuances of motherhood in a fast-paced world.

Additionally, Nora’s screenplay The Bride Andromeda has received significant recognition as a nominee for Best Plot in a Short Script at the Horror Hound Film Festival in Cincinnati in March 2026 and has also been selected for the Catalyst International Film Festival Screenwriting Lab in April 2026 in Limerick, Ireland. In The Bride Andromeda, Ann, a timid bibliophile, harbours a deep-seated passion for Daniel, a Dungeons and Dragons nerd, and feels life is passing her by as she worries she will never have the perfect engagement story. When the elegant, mysterious Hermes enters her life, Ann becomes determined to secure his affections and begins to transform herself into a Gothic Andromeda, complete with a Victorian corset and sculpted hair. However, when Hermes, a charming vampire, grows bored with her superficial obsessions, he manipulates Ann into a ritual designed to make their “love” everlasting, leading to unexpected and comical consequences.

Overall, Nora’s diverse projects reflect her commitment to exploring the complexities of identity, resilience, and the societal pressures that shape women’s lives. As she continues her journey as a writer, she embraces the vision of storytelling that captures both the personal and the universal. Through her work, she seeks to resonate with audiences and provoke thought, illuminating the hidden stories within us all.
I dream to write and write to dream.

The Disruptor grows directly from my lived experience during a tumultuous period of my youth. At eighteen I entered a mother‑and‑baby home in secrecy, weighed down by stigma and fear. I refused to sign the adoption papers and kept my daughter, a choice that reshaped my life and the course of my family. We were punished for it: I was expelled from my family home and endured ostracism. Those hardships were real, costly and formative.

Sister Claude, a nun connected to the adoption agency made a decisive difference. She told me it was okay to say no; she helped me reclaim my voice and my motherhood. Without her, I do not know that I would have found the courage to stand up for myself and my child. This film is an act of thanks to her, and to the few who offered care inside a cruel system.

The Disruptor is both an act of witness and an attempt to map the complexity of love, shame, institutional power and small acts of resistance. It seeks to show how obedience is enforced, how compassion survives, and how ordinary people, women, neighbours, the marginalised can alter the machinery of control through steady, stubborn care. Above all it is personal: made in honour of the women who passed through Ireland’s mother & baby homes, and for my eldest daughter Aoife, whose life continues to teach and inspire me. I look forward now to becoming a very grateful grandmother this year.

Revealing the darkness of those institutions is part of the work of healing; this story is one small light in that work.