‘At the Bottom of the Reen’ - Molly Kiely’s short doc captures the heart of Glengoole

Irish filmmaker Molly Kiely’s ‘At the Bottom of the Reen’ is, on its surface, a documentary about a small-village pub. Yet beneath that modest premise lies something altogether larger and more elegiac. This is not simply a film about Buddy’s Pub in Glengoole, County Tipperary—it is a work steeped in subtext, articulating a quiet tragedy of rural decline and the endurance of community ritual. 

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Through the smoke of turf fires and the lament of old songs, Kiely captures not merely a place but a vanishing way of life. Premiering in competition at Docs Ireland 2025 at Queen’s Film Theatre in Belfast, ‘At the Bottom of the Reen’ turns its gaze toward a ninety-year-old family pub and its third-generation proprietor, Sinéad Brennan. 

Once the lively heart of a mining town, Buddy’s now opens just once a month. In this setting—half sanctuary, half relic—Kiely finds a microcosm of contemporary rural Ireland, where economic contraction meets cultural persistence.

Molly Kiely grew up just outside Kilcullen in County Kildare, though her family roots extend deep into Glengoole, Tipperary. From an early age, storytelling captivated her, and she immersed herself in Kildare Youth Theatre. Yet it soon became clear that her fascination lay not on stage but behind it—in writing, directing, and shaping narratives.

 Initially drawn to journalism, she recognised that the power of storytelling was increasingly visual, and after a brief stint at St John’s Film School in Cork, she worked in the events industry for many years. The arrival of Covid prompted a period of reflection, and Kiely returned to formal study, graduating from Technological University Dublin with a BA in Film and Broadcasting, Digital Communication and Media/Multimedia.

“I have always wanted to tell stories, but to have a journalistic element to what I do and documentary is just the sweet spot,” she reflects. She cites Tamara Kotevska, director of ‘Honeyland,’ and Shaunak Sen’s ‘All That Breathes’ as key influences, particularly in their visual storytelling, while her enduring hero remains Louis Theroux, whose patient, non-leading interview style has shaped her own approach to capturing subjects with intimacy and respect.

The spark for ‘At the Bottom of the Reen’ came through a deeply personal connection. Molly Kiely’s uncle, Denis Kiely, a lifelong resident of Glengoole, had witnessed the village change dramatically over the course of his life. A bachelor farmer who lived alone, Denis had seen the heartbeat of the community—the mine, the Bord na Móna briquette factory, the post office—fade one by one, leaving few places for people to gather. Yet Buddy’s Pub remained, a steadfast presence, more than a pub in the traditional sense: a town hall, a place for stories, laughter, music, and human connection.

“He told me about this pub and its owner, Sinéad, and her sister Marie, keeping it alive despite opening only once a month, which I found immediately intriguing. I had memories of the pub from my own childhood,” Kiely recalls. Denis passed away shortly before filming began, but it was the conversations she shared with him that ignited the motivation to bring this story to the screen.

For Kiely, Buddy’s was emblematic of something far larger: the erosion of rural life and the quiet persistence of those who refuse to let these social spaces vanish. Across Ireland, small villages are teetering on the brink of extinction, their communal lifelines slowly eroding. With this film, Kiely set out not just to document a pub but to examine the deeper themes of memory, resilience, and the enduring architecture of community in a changing world.

At the heart of the film is Sinéad Brennan, undeniably its central figure, whose presence carries both the emotional weight and the narrative drive of the story. The pub, her family’s legacy, is at once a burden and a blessing. It is a gift—a vessel of memory, tradition, and connection that she cherishes deeply. 

Kiely captures this duality with nuance, showing Sinéad bustling behind the bar, tending the fire, or straightening chairs, while simultaneously revealing moments of quiet reflection as she recalls the pub’s heyday. 

Through her eyes, we feel the pressures of sustaining a rural pub whose patrons are dwindling, where the surrounding area has been hollowed by the closure of mines and local industries, and yet we also see the profound pride and love that keep her committed. Every task, every interaction, becomes a testament to her devotion—not merely to a business, but to the cultural and emotional lifeblood of Glengoole itself. 

For Sinéad, Buddy’s is far more than a commercial enterprise; it is a cornerstone of the community. When a patron passes away, the loss is felt deeply, as though a member of the family has been taken. In this way, the pub transcends its role as a mere setting, becoming both a living character and the very soul of the village.

The film strikes a careful equilibrium, avoiding excessive nostalgia while celebrating the quiet persistence of Sinéad. It is a work of subtlety and nuance, capturing the dignity and resilience of her daily life without slipping into sentimentality. In conversation, Molly Kiely reflected on her approach:

“With the film, we can romanticise the past as much as we like, but there is a lot of positivity in the present day as well. I think what Sinéad would feel is that they are standing on the shoulders of giants.

 I wanted to nod to the past, but I think we need to look forward. I didn’t want to make a historical piece about the past—the contemporary story of this village and places like it are not as well told, and I wanted to document the village as it is today and ask questions as to what the future holds for it.” 

This perspective infuses the film with quiet optimism, framing Glengoole not simply as a site of decline but as a living community whose story is still being written.

Stylistically, ‘At the Bottom of the Reen’ is defined by its restraint. Kiely adopts a quiet, observational approach, allowing life to unfold without intervention.“I was really keen to just let life happen as much as possible,” she explains. “That’s where the essence of the place comes through—in those quiet moments, when she’s lighting the fire and sweeping the ashes. It’s everyday life; it could be viewed as monotonous, but to me it’s a way of life that’s just being documented. I wanted to show life as it is there.”

Working with a small, tight-knit crew—cinematographer Ted Daly, sound recordist Shane Smith, and gaffer Tamara Sztanko—Kiely opts for still, tableau-like compositions, often letting scenes play out in their own time. 

The camera, anchored on a tripod, resists the urge to intrude, instead observing with a painterly patience. In these unhurried frames, movement comes not from the filmmaker but from life itself: the flicker of a fire, the sweep of ash, a hand placing a glass on a counter.

The effect is quietly hypnotic, a portrait of place and rhythm rather than plot. Kiely’s aesthetic recalls the meditative observational style of her documentary influences, prioritising authenticity over artifice and letting the soul of Glengoole speak for itself.

The finished film feels composed rather than merely assembled, a work sculpted rather than stitched together. Kiely edited ‘At the Bottom of the Reen’ herself, shaping its rhythm with the same care she brought to its direction. “I was able to get a lot of subtext in the film through the edit,” she explains.

“The rhythm comes as you watch it. It took a while to edit—I was working while cutting the film in my free time—but I let the music accent the themes and the emotional notes.”

Music is the emotional bloodstream of ‘At the Bottom of the Reen,’ flowing through every frame with an authenticity that feels entirely organic to the world it inhabits.“I asked the people in the film to sing songs that they would sing in a session,” Kiely explains.

“Rosanne, who sings at the opening of the film, sang four songs that she enjoyed singing. For me to come down and curate the music would not have made sense. I wanted to find music that came from Glengoole or the surrounding area.”

The most important of these, she says, was ‘At the Bottom of the Reen’—Buddy’s own song, recorded by a Kilkenny radio crew one evening in the 1980s and preserved on cassette by his daughter, Sinéad. Everything else was drawn from the community’s living repertoire, unforced and unembellished.

The result is a soundscape inseparable from the landscape itself, where each melody deepens the film’s sense of place and underscores its themes of loss and continuity.  

At ‘The Bottom of the Reen’ closes on a note both tender and resolute, much like its central figure, Sinéad Brennan. Through Kiely’s careful observation, the film emerges as a celebration of persistence, memory, and community—a quiet elegy that never lapses into nostalgia. 

With her meticulous eye, patient editing, and attunement to the rhythms of life and music, Molly Kiely has crafted a work that is as emotionally resonant as it is visually restrained. In capturing the heartbeat of Glengoole, she not only preserves a moment in time but also announces herself as a filmmaker whose voice is distinct, empathetic, and unmistakably assured. 

Molly is an exciting and captivating new voice in Irish cinema, one whose stories are bound to linger in the mind long after the screen goes dark.

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