Hush-A-Bye Baby

A coming-of-age film set in Derry against the backdrop of The Troubles and an all powerful Catholic Church. Impressionable Irish teen Goretti Friel (Emer McCourt) begins a romance with an older boy, Ciarán (Michael Liebman). In love but naïve about such practical concerns as birth control, the devoutly Roman Catholic Goretti ends up with an unwanted pregnancy.

When Ciarán is jailed by the British army, and shows little desire from prison to uphold his parental responsibilities, the pressures of unanticipated motherhood begin to unravel the 15-year-old teen’s emotional stability. Features the acting debut of a very youthful Sinéad O’Connor who also wrote the music.

The print of HUSH-A-BYE BABY was restored by the Irish Film Institute in 2025 for a retrospective of Margo Harkin’s work.

AWARDS

Bronze Leopard for Best Actress (Emer McCourt) and Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the 1990 Locarno Film Festival

REVIEWS

Seán Patrick Donlon for Scannain: “… essential viewing, a classic of Irish cinema.”