A sumptuously-costumed, beautifully shot feature-length film of the music of Anakronos' The Red Book of Ossory - medieval meets jazz - and its historical backstory of a notorious witch hunt in 14th century Kilkenny.
The Island of Saints is based on an important 14th century medieval manuscript, The Red Book of Ossory, which was compiled in Kilkenny and is housed there in St Canice's Cathedral. Pre-eminent among the manuscript’s texts are sixty remarkable Latin poems by Richard de Ledrede, Bishop of Ossory. The bishop instructed that these lyrics be sung by the priests, clerks and choristers of the St Canice’s “on the important holidays and at celebrations in order that their throats and mouths, consecrated to God, may not be polluted by songs which are lewd, secular, and associated with revelry, and, since they are trained singers, let them provide themselves with suitable tunes according to what these sets of words require”. Accordingly, Caitríona O’Leary, music director of Anakronos, has set de Ledrede’s esoteric and imagistic poetry to music from a multitude of medieval sources.
RICHARD DE LEDREDE
Fourteenth century Ireland was a time of invasions, war, lawlessness, famine and plague. A time of fear, violence and almost unimaginable mutability.
In 1317 Richard de Ledrede – an English Franciscan of the Order of Friars Minor - arrived in Kilkenny as the new Bishop of Ossory (1317 – 1361) and immediately set about challenging the secular authorities and making a name for himself as a zealous moraliser and "scourge of heresy". He was responsible instigating and presiding over the famous witchcraft trial of Dame Alice Kyteler, composed a fantastical and nightmarish list of charges against her and others, and caused the first person in recorded history to be burned at the stake for the heresy of witchcraft; Dame Alice’s servant, Petronilla de Meath.
The film is shot in the beautiful 13th century Swords Castle (the best surviving example of an Archbishop's Palace in Ireland) and the woodlands in Malahide castle demesne.
