Like, it probably took them a while to find their footing as a band.

Yeah, I would think so.

It's not just you mentioned the theme from MASH.

That was actually my first ever encounter with the Manic Street Preachers was seeing them play the theme from MASH.

Right.

on top of the props.

But I'd love to say, like, I became an instant fan and I've been a fan since, was that 92 or something? But that's not true at all.

And, like, you know, they played, was it the Millennium Stadium? On Millennium Night, they

But like, was it Odele or were you a fan beforehand, Loser, Mellow Gold?

Well, I was a fan.

I would have heard the Loser when it was sort of on MTV rotation.

And I would have loved that song when it was, you know, that would have been kind of 94.

I would have been just a kid then.

So that was a really long time ago if I was just a kid.

But I didn't investigate further at that age.

And, you know, even, like, people who wouldn't have been... hugely into music like the live performances stuff they're just like this guy is you know sort of sensational

And I thought it delivered another classic.

It didn't seem to faze them at all.

I sort of thought it was actually, Homework's actually a really excellent album, but it always felt to me more just like, It's more just a collection of individual tracks, like, admittedly, and there's nothing wrong with that.

There are loads of individually excellent tracks, but Discovery almost felt just like a more cohesive, more a piece of work, connecting threads to all the music and a musical and sort of a visual theme that ran through it.

It almost felt like, you know, making a second album, actually, you know, it's...

It's a difficult process for some people.

They seem to make it easy because it actually gave them, you know, it was a more focused piece of work because they already had a following and they had something to aim for.

Yeah.

People, I know we've had comments in relation to that since the story ran yesterday, but just to clarify that for people, Kilkee no longer classed as a town by the CSO because the population is now below 1500, although I'm sure at the moment it's considerably above that.

Multiples of it.

Look, yeah, I mean, I suppose, you know, I mean, this is nothing new.

What is, I suppose, new is that it is now a state body has put this on the table.

It is the Central Statistics Office.

Their data would be used by departments across the country to deliver policy, funding, budgetary processes, planning, long-term planning and stuff like that.

And I think the most important thing we can take from this document is what do we do with it? You know, where do we go with it? You know, we've already put this on the Minister's table to say, you know, given this report, is it going to now be included in your future planning for the HSE Midwest? Is it going to be part of your future consideration from budget processes? You know, we hear about the National Ambulance Service.

Do you expect it to happen? I know you said you take a more glass-half-full approach than glass-half-empty.

I'll pass on to the next slide and Killian.

Yeah.

Good afternoon, everyone.

So just to touch on.

Our markets and what we saw in the second quarter, really, we saw solid demand across our product suite in the second quarter of the year.

And that's what really supported the stronger shipments we saw in the second quarter and really through the first half.

Starting on Illmanite, we saw that demand was pretty stable on the pigment side and continues to be strong on the metal side.

What was that moment for you? Was it on set? Was it in pre-production?

Well, the approach I always take is do as much research as you possibly can, and there's so much out there about Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project.

There's, there's so much archival footage out there you can, you can access and, you know, obviously I read the book.

But for me, the most important resource was the script, you know, that's what I really worked on.

And I had six months from when Chris called me unexpectedly [laughing] and, uh, uh, to, to when we started shooting to work on it.

Having said that, I think when you get on the floor with actors like these guys and with Chris, you kinda just put that aside, and it all becomes kind of about the moment and the truth and the emotion between the, the actors.

And that was just every day was, it was a gift.

[laughs]

Whilst that's welcome news, um, you know, do, do, do we need more than that? Sh- will that be sufficient to help in situations like this? Or, uh, is there much more that needs to be done?

Well, I suppose the, the most important thing is- You know, they're, they're coming.

[laughs] That's, that's a really important piece.

The, the other piece I think that is, um, is that we need an update very quickly as to where they are, because the last, my, my last information was that they, you know, they were going through a kind of recruitment, uh, recruitment process to, uh, to, to get those members of staff and stuff like that.

And, um, and we surely are at a point now where those staff should be, uh, employees, and those resources should be visible for us as a community out on, out, out on, o- o- out in the, in the area.

Um, but I think there's something here that really, uh, I, I suppose we need to be very careful here, because with the best will in the world, if you add an extra ambulance and assignment, an extra ambulance to Clare or to Ki- to Kilrush, and if they are gone with a, if they, if they happen to be gone, there is no guarantees that they will be, that there will be cover back in their absence.

You know, this is a systems problem.

It, there's, there's ifs, ifs and whens, uh, question marks around it.

What findings stood out most to you from the report, particularly given Clare is a coastal county and you're living out on the coast?

I think, Alan, the most surprising thing is that there was no real surprise.

You know, I think anyone who lives on the coast sees the impact of coast erosion.

As a councillor, when I was in the council, and I have no doubt my colleagues who are existing councillors have, you know, the phone is ringing once a week, or there's definitely, you know, people on the phone to them are emailing and saying, you know, what am I going to do? You know, and it is a big...

You know the analogy of biting the frog, you know, if you put the frog in the water and turn the heat up very slowly, the frog will stay there.

This is, you know, it is loss of our land by increments.

And because it's so slow, we really do not, it just doesn't register.

clearly a master plan is needed, but how important is it that there's meaningful community consultation, like with your community in Kilkee and elsewhere, in any future planning process, given the local knowledge that community groups would have in their area and you think would play a significant part in shaping coastal policy?

I'm just curious, why do you think some people kind of digest him that way instead?

Oh, it's a, yeah, it's a difficult one to kind of fully, uh, parse because like I, um, You know, for like people say, what makes it so what? Like you could list all the ingredients, right? And you could take them and try to replicate it again.

And it wouldn't work.

And there's just no one set answer.

I mean, I always go back to the foundational reason why TV or film work is great writing that if you don't have that, it ain't going to work.

And then after that, it's just luck in terms of the people you get, that time in your life, the group of people that end up working on it.

It's a very strange alchemy or freakery or witchcraft.

How excited are you to never have to do the haircut again?

Uh-huh.

But, but, and I don't, like I'm not a writer.

I'm definitely not a writer, and, uh, so I didn't have that.

But I would go and play music in the kind of fallow bits or just, you know, um, just go and just watch movies and read books.

But it, it, it...

I didn't, no, I never got to the stage where I thought, "Ah, fuck this." But I, I did, whenever the stuff started to get kind of dry up in film or television, I was very lucky to have, um, a friend of mine called Enda Walsh who, who I made an, an awful lot of theater with.

Do they have it right so far?

That's more or less accurate.

Uh, uh, did, how much did you guys think about that? How hard did you work to make sure that it, it fit in?

A lot.

An awful lot, to be honest with you.

I mean, like, it was 36 hours of telly.

I'm really, really proud of what we achieved.

I love at the ending of season six, it was quite ambiguous and quite open-ended.

We were gonna do season seven, and then COVID happened, so we pivoted to the movie.

Yeah.

Science has profoundly altered the conditions of man's life, both materially and in ways of the spirit as well.

The thing about all the stuff on the internet, a lot of it was him in kind of performative m- mode.

So, you know, he'd be giving lectures or giving talks and there's very little candid footage of him.

So I, I couldn't really use that too much because people are different when they're giving a speech.

People are different when they're talking to a lecture hall full of students from a pre-prepared script.

So we had to use our imagination really and use the script and use our own interpretation to find this kind of synthesis of my version of Oppenheimer or, or myself and Chris's version of Oppenheimer.

A lot of the things that the Nolans hold dear have kind of fallen to the wayside, and in seeing the result of it, I now am beyond convinced of the value of why he is so hell-bent on shooting things in a way where you really feel the, the luster and the specificity of what film can deliver.

All the crew members, all the cast, you know, everybody was bringing their, their best to the table to tell the story, and for a director, that's, that's a marvelously privileged position to be in, to just have all these very talented people coming to you with, with thought and passion, uh, and really caring about what they're doing and not wanting to just make just another film, wanting to do something very special.

(laughs)

There, and so many people I've met over the course of promoting this film have teachers or social workers as parents.

And, um, I think it, I think it's a vocational job.

I, I think you, you, you kind of need to do this thing, and you have a drive in you to, to help people, and, um, or to help children, in this case.

And, uh, um, I feel like, you know, that the kid who's been written off or the kid that, uh, sort of the institution or society has abandoned kind of ideologically, if you can reach that kid and make him or her, like, feel seen or-

Um, what is his relationship, what's Steve's relationship with Shai?

I mean, I think they're like t- two sides of a coin, really.

They're both, um, really sensitive and, um, brilliant people, and very, uh, open people.

So how do you describe it to people?

Well, the, how it came about as a film is because I'm very good friends with the writer of the novella Shy, Max Porter.

Uh, we've made two pieces of work together, and this is the third piece.

And, um, we, we, we, we stay in touch all the time.

We're just talking.

Uh, he has three boys.

I have two boys.

So what was this experience like for you, maybe different from other films you've done?