Alan Gilsenan

Biography

Alan Gilsenan is an Irish writer, filmmaker and theatre director. His documentaries, which range from robust investigation to essayistic reverie to sensitive observation, are distinguished by intellectual rigour and creative innovation, allied to a seemingly unquenchable curiosity about history, literature, culture and society – both in Ireland but also in the wider world. His highly eclectic oeuvre of over 40 films for cinema and television also provides an invaluable compendium of reflection on Irish minds and Irish matters over four decades.

Directed

1. Unless (2016) — Director
2. The Road to God Knows Where (1988) — Director
3. All Souls' Day (1997) — Director
4. Zulu 9 (2001) — Director
5. The Ghost of Roger Casement (2002) — Director
6. Timbuktu (2004) — Director
7. Eliza Lynch: Queen of Paraguay (2013) — Director
8. An Buachaill Geal Gáireach/The Laughing Boy (2023) — Director
9. The United Irishmen (2023) — Director
10. The Seven Ages of Noël Browne (2023) — Director
11. Paul Muldoon: Laoithe is Lirici (2022) — Director
12. The Yellow Bittern — Director
13. Ghosts of Baggotonia (2022) — Director
14. The Irish Question (2024) — Director
15. Meetings with Ivor (2017) — Director
16. The Days of Trees (2024) — Director
17. The Meeting (2018) — Director
18. A Century of Irish Aviation: Pioneers and Aviators (2014) — Director
19. We Only Want the Earth (2026) — Director
20. The Great Book of Ireland (2020) — Director
21. The Journey of Weather-Exposed Bones (2026) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Michael D. – Power to the People — Director
2. Clannad: The Farewell / An Scaradh Deireanach — Director