Darragh O’Connell and Cathal Gaffney were students at Ballyfermot College in the early 1990s. Sharing an urge to do their own thing creatively, these two kindred spirits began producing and directing short animated films. Cathal got chucked out of college for doing too much of his own thing, and the following year Darragh followed suit.
They joined forces again in 1994 to live their dream and produce their first short animated feature. It was based on the life of Peig Sayers, the Blasket Island native and bane of their lives in school. Darragh claimed the series was “an exercise in revenge” but in fact Peig brought them considerable good fortune when RTÉ offered to finance a series; thus Brown Bag was born.
The animation industry in Ireland was miniscule, and years of hard graft followed. In 2001, Darragh and Cathal’s hard work finally paid off, thanks to another woman called Peg, and Brown Bag Films was catapulted onto the global stage. The break came when a series of Bible stories, related by the young students of schoolteacher Peg Cunningham in 1960, emerged on the Live Line radio show. It was by happy accident that Cathal heard them whilst driving to Galway and loved them so much he chased the permissions to make a short film.
Directed by Darragh and produced by Cathal, Give Up Your Aul Sins won an abundance of critical acclaim. The Irish Times described it as “a five-minute masterpiece” and the Sunday Independent called it “the most brilliant programme on RTÉ”. Darragh was surprised at how well the Irish embraced it, since the dialect was hard for non-Dublin listeners to understand. People loved the charm of the animated characters and the innocence of the children’s voices. His favorite sequence in the film was the wicked woman who refused to give up her aul sins to St John the Baptist. “It’s the classic line that gets everyone in stitches,” says Darragh.
The film was a winner at the 2002 Galway and Cork Film Festivals and took an International Audience Prize at the Bristol Film Festival later that year. Their success led to Give Up Your Aul Sins becoming the best-selling Irish video of Christmas 2002.
Their “ultimate achievement to date”, however, came in 2002, when Brown Bag were short-listed for potential nomination in the Best Animated Short Film Category at the 74th Annual Academy Awards. The animation team gathered apprehensively around a computer on the day of the final cut and cheered deliriously around the office when the good news came online. Drink was consumed in abundance, and the Academy could not contact Darragh or Cathal for another two days because the phone lines were jammed by the media frenzy.
Darragh was “bricking it” on Oscar night when he stepped onto the red carpet, surrounded by flashing lights and screaming onlookers. John Lassiter, CEO of Pixar, the company behind Toy Story and Shrek, had earlier offered him some words of wisdom at a pre-Oscar lunch. He told Darragh to enjoy the ride and not to get too excited. John had previously disembarked from a limousine when photographers screamed, “Forget it, he’s a nobody”, and declined to take his picture.
Give Up Your Aul Sins cost €27,000 to produce and was nominated against Pixar’s $10m production For the Birds, Canada’s Strange Invaders and the Chicago-based Stubble Trouble. Pixar won the Oscar but Darragh was not bitter or resentful. “It was a bloody great film, so at the end of the day, I can’t really argue.” He was simply excited about attending the Oscars and rubbing shoulders with celebrities like Marisa Tomei, Jon Voight and Will Smith. He also stood next to Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke and Jennifer Connelly in a photo shoot before the show; the picture proudly hangs at his Dublin studios. “It was a strange experience being in the room with such A-list celebrities. Everyone assumed I must have done something good to even be there.”
Their next major Brown Bag project moves away from the Bible and features the Koran. They are also working with the Canadian Cartoon Network, and have sold animated commercials to a Beirut-based company and Irish companies such as Mace and Jacob’s. They also continue to win awards, most recently picking up two gongs at the Irish Film and Television Awards for the short The Boy With No Story. Brown Bag Films are without doubt a force to be reckoned with.