A three-day short film about the search for a dry, free place to just sit and be.
“Something To Keep The Slugs Off The Cabbages” is a short film I made as part of the 2023 Architecture at the Edge Festival, in their Film + Architecture workshop. I made it in just three days, including composing the soundtrack, driven by frustration and weariness: after countless rainy days in Ireland I got fed up with how hard it is to find a dry, free, public space to just sit and be.
The title comes from a moment on a bus ride up to the workshop in Galway: I overheard the driver say to someone complaining about the rain, “Sure, we need something to keep the slugs off the cabbages.” That phrase stuck with me, the perfect allegory for needing shelter, community and care in everyday life.
Through the film we follow a kind of pilgrimage, moving through a series of spaces in search of refuge from the rain, a spot to read a book, to breathe, to exist without paying for comfort. But none of the options really offer what we need. That personal frustration becomes a broader critique of how architecture and urban planning in Ireland often fail to accommodate simple human needs, a plea to architects, city-planners and policymakers to rethink our public spaces.
I later screened it at the Pálás cinema in Galway, with a short Q&A afterwards.