Our ancestors never looked back. Isn’t time we did?
Who am I? Where do I come from? These questions lead a Minnesota woman on a search in the beautiful Burren region of Ireland.
From a small farm high in the hills northeast of Lahinch, County Clare, 19-year-old Anne Davoren left home and country in 1887. It was a time of drought, land wars and evictions in the west of Ireland. Anne and her sisters made a 3700-mile journey to the U.S., like tens of thousands of European emigrants. They came to build a new life and to send money home so their family could stay on the land. Two generations later, Anne’s story was forgotten.
Determined to find the place and people Anne left behind, granddaughter, Rita Davern, heads for the Burren, a region of harsh beauty, bright-hued wildflowers and ancient stone forts. There, she finds descendants of a traditional Gaelic clan who have lived in the Burren for 1,200 years. She also finds traces of their legacy, a medieval document lost in the devastation of Cromwell’s 16th century invasion of Ireland.
Burren Girl, uncovers the distant past through a vibrant, present-day community of farm families in the Burren. It is not the Ireland of gravestones and faded records that this film offers, but the thrill that comes with reknitting centuries-old connections among the living.
It’s a journey home.
Lead Artist: Rita Davern
