From that Small Island documentary scoops award at Newport Beach Film Festival

Posted on: 19 November 2025

From that Small Island documentary, which features a host of Trinity researchers, has won the Outstanding International Documentary Award at the prestigious Newport Beach International Film Festival where it had its North American Premiere recently.  

From That Small Island – The Story of the Irish  is a ground-breaking feature-length documentary, and accompanying four-part series, which traces the story the Irish—from first inhabitants to a global diaspora of 80 million plus.  

Narrated by Colin Farrell, the series sets out to answer questions such as: Who are the Irish? Where did they come from? Where do they go? 6 million people live on the island of Ireland, but over 80 million people worldwide say they are Irish. What does that mean? Why, in a totally unprecedented manner, does the whole world turn green on St Patrick’s Day? 

Shot on location in 17 countries worldwide, the documentary draws on deep historical research and the latest scientific discoveries.  Eight Trinity academics feature as experts across the series and feature documentary – Jane Ohlmeyer, Patrick Geoghegan, Rachel Moss, Micheál Ó Siochrú, Francis Ludlow and Immo Warntjes from the School of Histories and Humanities and Dan Bradley and Lara Cassidy from the School of Genetics and Microbiology.

From that Small Island: The Story of the Irish was produced by Coco Content. It was created, written and produced by Briona Nic Dhiarmada and directed by Rachael Moriarty and Peter Murphy. Trinity College Dublin’s Professor Jane Ohlmeyer acted as historical consultant and associate producer.  

Following its US premier in Newport Beach the feature documentary was screened in Chicago, New York and Boston in collaboration with the Consulate General of Ireland. These events also incorporated a discussion with Briona Nic Dhiarmada and Jane Ohlmeyer.   

From that Small Island was also screened in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Dubai and Doha in September. The feature was an official selection at the Galway International Film Fleadh and is currently an official selection at The Hague International Film Festival and is officially nominated for ARFF//Berlin International Film Festival to take place in late November. 

The four-part series for television was screened by RTÉ in June and is now available on the RTÉ Player. It is being distributed internationally by RTÉ Distribution and has had a very successful take up to date.  

The series is currently being broadcast on SBS, one of Australia’s main public service networks broadcasters. It has also been taken up by 95% of top APT/PBS stations coast to coast in the US including the primary stations in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Transmission will begin in January.   

In addition, From that Small Island was selected for broadcast on WORLD, the 24/7 full-service multicast channel, featuring public television’s signature nonfiction documentary, science and news programming.  

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