Liam McGrath

Film-maker Liam McGrath is a graduate of Coláiste Dhúlaigh College of Further Education and The National Film School of Ireland. His film school graduation production in 1993 was the multi-award-winning film Boys for Rent. It told the story of Dublin boy prostitutes and established McGrath as a filmmaker of merit. Soon after that McGrath directed the award-winning feature documentary Southpaw which received its international premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 1999 before going on to a theatrical release in the USA, Britain, and Ireland. Since then McGrath has produced and directed numerous award-winning documentaries that have been commissioned by RTE, CH4, the BBC, and ARTE. As a producer and director McGrath was at the helm of the RTÉ hit comedy series Naked Camera which won the 2007 IFTA award for 'Best Entertainment Programme'. The series sold DVD's in excess of triple platinum status and led to a number of spin-off productions including Maeve Higgins: Fancy Vittles and two hit DVD stand-up comedy releases for Universal Pictures. In 2011, McGrath was the Irish Producer on the hugely successful PBS series Music of Ireland which went on to win a NY Area Emmy in the USA for 'Best Arts' and led McGrath to produce the very successful music documentaries for RTÉ; Finbar Furey: Free Spirit, John Sheahan: Dubliner (IFTA* award for 'Best Cinematography' & 'Best Sound' 2014), Dolores Keane: A Storm in the Heart (Won IFTA award for 'Best Director' 2015, Celtic Media Festival 'Best Arts' 2015), Paddy Moloney: Chieftain & Garech Browne: Last Days At Luggala. In 2018/2019, McGrath made his first venture into 'fixed rig' film-making with the award-winning series The Rotunda (a.k.a. 24 Hour Baby Hospital) for RTÉ and More4. In 2020 he in production on another 'fixed-rig' series, this time for Virgin Media called Emergency Pet Hospital. In 2020, in the middle of Covid-19 McGrath co-produced and co-directed Ireland On Call a 13-part television response to the pandemic. Probably the biggest impact that McGrath has had to date as a film-maker has been his multi-award-winning work with Ireland's indigenous 'Traveller' culture. In particular, many believe his films Blood of the Travellers (Winner IFTA award for 'Best Documentary' 2011) and John Connors: The Travellers (Winner IFTA Award 'Best Documentary Series 2018') led to Travellers being recognized as an indigenous ethnic minority by the Irish Government in 2017.