The accusation that Cathal Ó Searcaigh is an exploitative sex-tourist is a lie. This is the conclusion drawn at the end of a twenty-minute film, The Truth about Kathmandu, which will be shown as part of Féile na Gréine: the Solstice Arts Festival, which runs in Waterville, Co. Kerry from Sunday 21st to Tuesday 23rd June. The film consists of interviews that the poet Paddy Bushe conducted with many of those who played important parts in the film Fairytale of Kathmandu. “What I heard in Kathmandu raises huge questions for both Vinegar Hill Productions and RTÉ”, Bushe says. “The young people to whom I spoke felt extremely angry at being exploited. They were angry, however, not at Ó Searcaigh, but at the way they felt used, abused and exploited by the film. These are the Nepalese young people a joint RTÉ/Vinegar Hill statement dismissed as being peripheral subjects, whose permission was not needed.”

Naryan Pant was the young man who was central to accusations made by Fairytale of Kathmandu. In an interview with Bushe, he makes very specific claims of intimidation, bribery and rehearsed answers in relation to his interview in the Vinegar Hill film. He also says that he contacted the film-maker soon after that interview was done, and requested that the interview should not be used, an interview for which he did not sign a permission form. A student leader says he was offered money to give an interview critical of Ó Searcaigh, an offer he declined. The young man in the advertising poster for the film, still on the film website, expresses his anger at how he was manipulated into something “false”. He signed no permission form, and says he would never give permission to be used in the film Fairytale of Kathmandu became. “Would young Westerners have been treated like this?” asks Bushe at the end of the film.

It was in the context of this filmed material that Cathal Ó Searcaigh agreed to go on the Late Late Show earlier this year. The show’s production team had seen some of the material, and it was to have been background material for the interview. RTÉ management’s subsequent insistence on a pre-recorded interview, with pre-conditions and with an RTÉ lawyer present, caused Ó Searcaigh to withdraw from what, in effect, would have been an appearance censored by RTÉ’s corporate management..

The film will be shown in Tech Amergin, Waterville, Co. Kerry on Monday 22nd June at 2.30 pm. See www.feilenagreine.com for full programme.

Anyway, I have been using team blogs to keep people informed of a couple of creative projects I’m planning. They’re a remarkably simple and effective way of keeping a team of people involved, generating interest and enthusiasm, brainstorming and networking.

One of them is about a five-minute documentary I’m going to be making, as part of the excellent Filmbase Documentary Filmmaking course. It’s about adolescence, memory, and emerging gay identity across the generations. When our little team of five have something to show for ourselves, the blog can go public, and so people will be able to read about the gestation process behind the end product, the final film.

I am happy to say I’ve no problem finding young people to take part in the film. But what I’ve come across is the sad fact that elderly gay people are really hard to find. Of course, they exist, but they are not in contact with younger gay people, or even middle-aged gay people. They are disconnected from the gay community, which makes me really question our claim to call it a community. President Mary McAleese asked the question “Where are all the old men?” last year, and has successfully begun to address that question by piloting an outreach programme for old men in Ireland. So, I’m asking, where are all the old gay men and women?

Naturally, the pub and club scene is not for them. But I’m surprised there isn’t a social group for them somewhere, at least in Dublin. In general, gay old people aren’t grandparents, so the chances are that they are much more isolated than their heterosexual counterparts. Are they back in the closet, living in old people’s homes dotted around the country? Who is remembering them? Who is looking after them?

Trailer

Mercifully, I had a fun diversion to avoid Valentine’s nonsense last night. One of the first films to sell out in the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival was I Sell The Dead, a comic horror flick that is the debut feature from writer/director/editor Glenn McQuaid.

It’s not a genre I’m familiar with, at all, so I wouldn’t dream of claiming that this is an informed review. I’m just so impressed that a low-budget first feature could (a) look so darkly atmospheric and haunting (b) poke fun at itself with such gleeful mischievous charm and (c) lightly bring in elements of Gilliam-like surrealism and not flog them to death.

Some really playful performances abound, Eileen Colgan is a delight, Ron Perlman’s lugubrious presence dominates the screen, and the zany double-act of Dominic Monaghan and Larry Fessenden (who also produced the film) is at its gory core. But what’s most evident is the confident playfulness of Dubliner McQuaid, who secured funding on the basis of his script alone, which is always an inspiration.

7th February 2009 Dublin

Cathal Ó Searcaigh’s first extended English-language interview, since the scandal generated by the film Fairytale of Kathmandu broke a year ago, has hit the stands today in the current issue of Hot Press.  You can read a statement about it here.

If you are a subscriber to Hot Press’s website, you can read the full interview here. Subscription costs €20 for a year.

If you are in Nepal, Hot Press have tried to make it possible that anyone reading the article online there should be able to read it for free, without having to subscribe. If there are any problems with this, please get in touch with Hot Press here.

In addition, anyone from Nepal may order a copy of the magazine for free, and just pay the postage, here.

For a limited period, the film is available for free download here.

Incidentally, not that it is necessarily a marker of tolerance in any society, Nepal’s Supreme Court instructed the government to introduce gay marriage in November 2008, deeming the ban on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional.  The Nepalese may be more advanced than the Irish, before the year is out, when it comes to gay rights.

Cathal Ó Searcaigh was invited to appear on the Late Late Show tonight. However, this morning they appeared to get cold feet about allowing him to speak live, and, perhaps under legal pressure from Vinegar Hill, the production company behind the controversial film Fairytale of Kathmandu, informed him that they would only proceed if his  interview was pre-recorded.  Believing that this amounted to censorship, Ó Searcaigh declined to participate. However, he believes the original invitation was made in good faith.

My exclusive interview with him will be published in next Thursday’s Hot Press, which will be the first proper English-language interview he’s done since the scandal broke last year. (An English translation of his interview on RnaG is here.)

Previously, I’ve written about the film in Hot Press here and here. A blog post about the DVD that his friends in Nepal made in his defence is here. My Irish Times article is here. A comprehensive list of links relating to the scandal is here. Some worthwhile commentary on the affair is here and here.

For a limited period, the film itself is available for free download here.

Update: As per her comment below, Neasa Ní Chianán denies that Vinegar Hill put pressure on RTÉ to pre-record the interview.

Dubliner Raja Nundlall is one of those special teachers who make their enthusiasm and passion for their subject infectious, apparently effortlessly. Self-deprecating and yet knowledgeable, he made it fun, and shared his love of film, his creativity, and his practical nous with us. Happily non-academic, he’s the sort of teacher who is worth their weight in gold, because at the end I felt I got what I came for – and more. It all seemed do-able in the end. Luckily, there were only four of us in the group this time around, which meant we each had a camera to play with and in our last project, a little video, we each had a go at everything.

It was my first time in Filmbase, and as an introduction to the organization it could not have been better. Obviously, there’s something really vigorous and healthy about the place. I’ll be back.

Neasa Ní Chianáin suggested making a film which would explore ‘‘the harem of young men’’ befriended by Cathal Ó Searcaigh in a proposal made two years before filming the controversial Fairytale of Kathmandu documentary.

Documents obtained by The Sunday Business Post also show that the filmmaker said the film would focus on ‘‘Cathal Ó Searcaigh, in love’’ and would deal with how the poet tried to exert control over his relationships in Nepal.

“Shaman poet Galsan Tschinag in his Defence of Poetry (Poetry International Web, 1999) made a chilling prophecy when he said that as civilisation advances, people suffering from the madness that is poetic sensibility are less and less tolerated. ‘Defence of poetry thus means,’ he says, ‘defence of humanity.’”

So writes Gabriel Rosenstock in a letter to the Irish Times about Cathal Ó Searcaigh’s troubles, and it clarifies for me something about the fault lines that have opened up in the debate over the right- and wrong-doings of the poet’s activities in Nepal. I find myself appalled at the acidic judgmentalism of those condemning the man, and, at the same time, wondering why I should find myself sitting so uncomfortably on my woolly liberal fence. Perhaps it’s inevitable that in a heightened public scandal, especially one that concerns sexual morality, the middle ground becomes extremely inhospitable.

On the face of it, as a psychotherapist, having listened to many harrowing stories of child abuse, I know more than most the damage it can cause, and my sympathy is never for the abuser. So, I should be ready to jump on the band wagon and lynch the sexual exploiter Ó Searcaigh, join the crowd saying “down with that sort of thing” and calling for him to stop his evil ways, and campaign for his corrupting poetry to be removed from the eyes of our sensitive children studying for the Leaving Cert. Or, not being a lynch-mob kind of man, I should be, at the very least, aching for the plight of the teenagers who felt so hurt and used, and angry on their behalf. I do, but I see both the poet and the film-maker culpable on an individual level. And, on a collective level, of course, the poverty in Nepal is inescapably a factor in this tragedy. But as far as the Westerners go in this story, It’s a subtle charge I am making: the two former friends are both guilty of being unconscious of their own power, and in declaring war against Ó Searcaigh, using her film as her weapon, Ní Chianán has caused inestimable collateral damage. Of Ó Searcaigh’s lack of awareness about the effect of his being a rich Westerner, enough has been said already, and as I have already written, he has to account for himself and his actions. Of the film maker’s, however, more needs to be said.

I cannot believe that any good is served by bringing in a film crew to record what, in effect, are counselling sessions. When the film maker decided to bring in a counsellor to film the teenagers at the centre of the allegations, and it would have been impossible for them to put on record any positive feelings about their exchanges with Ó Searcaigh, because of the way that homosexuality is viewed in Nepal. Although plenty of sex between men happens, the Western notion of gay identity has yet to take root properly, or make any inroads into the culture. Even the head of the main LGBT organisation in Nepal has spoken about he has to be discreet about his orientation. Therefore, it would be next to impossible for a young man to say on film that he had taken his encounter with the poet in his stride, that he had picked himself off, dusted himself down, and got on with his life – which would be the therapeutic goal of any good counsellor. The act of filming, of recording for public display, is anathema to the spirit of counselling, and, in this particular situation, more importantly, the truth. Having their stories and pictures splashed all over the Nepalese press is not something, I believe, they could possibly have signed up for. It would have taken cojones of steel to be brazen enough to deny they were victims of the situation, and the impossible gift of premonition to be able to imagine the effect that speaking as they did in front of a camera would have the effect it has on Ó Searcaigh’s and their own lives. Could they have imagined, in particular, that what they were saying could be used as evidence in criminal charges?

Is it so contentious to say that there are no winners in this sorry saga, only losers? Do I have to accept the polarised nature of the debate, as set by the film maker? It seems that if I am critical of her film, then I am automatically deemed to be a defender of an exploiter of children. It feels as if I am being asked when I stopped beating my wife.

Shortly after I saw the film, I was on the DART one morning. A beautiful young man was sitting in a nearby seat. He must have been sixteen or seventeen; he had a face of shining gentleness and simplicity. He was smiling in open encouragement of his little brother, telling jokes and smiling in a heart-stopping way. I realised he was exactly the same kind of youth that Ó Searcaigh is drawn to, and I marvelled at his presence. I was imagining what it would be like to kiss him, to give him pleasure, to see him moan in surprise. I was thinking, all the time, what would be wrong if such a thing were to happen between us, and for the life of me I was stumped. I suspect that is the result of years of self-development as a gay man, kneading out the knots of my self-loathing, my shame about desiring members of my own sex. I’ve turned what, in my adolescence, had to be a secret desire, and therefore shameful, into something to be celebrated. I stayed there in my happy genial reverie until I asked myself the question: “What if I paid him?”

And then I realised that that would be obscene. Lucre is filthy. It contaminates, sullies, corrodes.

But that’s easy enough to say in a rich Western society. In a country such as Nepal, where poverty is endemic, it has a different lustre. And I don’t believe Ó Searcaigh fully comprehends that yet, because I don’t think he sees himself as a rich man, or a powerful man. A man without love is poor, no matter where he travels.

As Woody Allen says, if sex isn’t dirty, you’re not doing it right. There is something about the transgressive nature of sexuality, the mucky powerplay of it, the electricity of taboo, the draw to lose oneself, to throw caution and dignity to the wind and risk all for beauty, for pleasure: that is part of human nature. It’s not pretty, it’s not fair, and it can be highly destructive. The fact that I recognise that aspect in my own life is the reason I am not so quick to throw stones at Ó Searcaigh, as others are. He’s a man, not a monster, a man seeking escape from himself, in pursuit of beauty and in flight from the pain of relationship. And there, but for the grace of God, go I.

It starts with one of the most affecting young men in Fairytale speaking, Naryan Panta, the beautiful shy youth who talks about his first experience of sex with Ó Searcaigh, and says in halting, pained English, “he bought myself”. It is one of the most evocative moments in Neasa Ní Chianán’s film, the most apparently damning. However, here he is, aged 20, a cool bespectacled college student studying Physics, in jeans and baseball cap, (with his mobile phone going off and interrupting the interview), talking about his loving, continuous, physical relationship with Ó Searcaigh. He admits to feeling guilty for what he said at the time, and says he felt pressurized to say what he said in the film. The reason why he was angry with Ó Searcaigh that day was that he had come looking for him at the Buddha Hotel, and had just been told, by Ramesh Khadka, the man who organised the interview for Fairytale, that Ó Searcaigh had just left for Ireland, and that he wouldn’t be in touch with him again, because he never keeps in touch with the friends he makes in Nepal, that he was a bad man. Naryan was, understandably, devastated by that information, and in that hurt and confused space he told the film maker what she wanted to hear. Now, he’s come out fighting – against Ní Chianán. He says he felt pressurized, he felt pushed to say what he said. He had asked her to remove his interview from the documentary. She assured him that she had.

Naryan does not consider himself a victim, nor does he look or sound like one now. He was not offered counselling, nor, it appears, would he take it. He knows of no one else concerned with the film being offered counselling. “You are the greatest victim, in Neasa’s eyes, in Neasa’s thinking” jokes the interviewer to Naryan. He refutes it categorically. “No, never”.

Naryan’s amateur interviewer on this DVD, Janak Sapkota, who also appears in Fairytale, introduces himself. He is 21, with model looks, doing a Bachelor’s degree in Physics, and he’s also a writer and film maker, who has published two books with Cathal. He has known him for a long time, and they write haikus together. He says “After talking with a lot of Cathal’s friends, I have come to know that what Neasa is doing is all fake.” He says that none of the guys gave written permission to be interviewed. He says that Ní Chianán claims that she is representing their voice – but he says they can speak on their own, they have their own voice. If she is sure that the documentary is their voice, he says, he’d like to invite Neasa to come to Nepal and listen to them. Why can’t she be there with them? Why can’t they see the documentary together, why doesn’t she sit down with them side by side and they watch it together?

In the early part of Fairytale, in Ní Chianán’s narrative, she first wondered aloud about what Ó Searcaigh was up to when they went trekking, and a village boy who could speak no English, Ram, spent the night with Ó Searcaigh. The lad concerned, now a thickset vociferous twenty-year-old man, speaks on this DVD, and is furious that she filmed him without permission. In a passionate diatribe in rapidfire English, he condemns her, is outraged that she inferred what was happening between them, without justification, without proof, without even talking to him. He gives an account why he stayed with him, as it was too late to go home, after a night of dancing and laughter, that they all enjoyed very much. Why did Ní Chianán not interview him, or even introduce herself to him? “She has totally diminished us, our culture, our society, the Nepalese people” he says, and he challenges her to re-edit the documentary, to get “justification” from them.

The DVD then switches to a room full of his friends, drinking tea, recorded on a different day, or days. Naryan is there, as well as a few others, and all are lining up to speak with love and affection for their friend, their best friend, their god.

A 26 year old unnamed man speaks, not seen in Fairytale, talking about Ó Searcaigh, saying that he was very kind, that he loves Nepalese people. He encouraged him to study as well as doing his job. In response to the news that somebody is making a documentary about Ó Searcaigh claiming that he “abused with sex”, he says simply “I did not find that he had that kind of nature.”

Anwang Xu, a trekking guide, met him eleven years ago. “Cathal is not like that, people. I know him very well. I am doing a course and I had to ask my teacher to let me come here to speak for Cathal. I am happy to come here and speak for him. For the last eleven years he has always been with me, and I never saw anything like what they say about him. This is not true. He is not a wrong person. He is not like this. He’s a very true person. I am very worried about Cathal.”

Prakash Nepali, (21), the young man in Fairytale who was most lovingly effusive when talking about Cathal, then speaks. “I gave my interview, and said that Cathal was very good for me, I love him very much. I am always saying that Cathal is my god. I am very angry. He is my very very best friend. I am so upset hearing this bad news. He is not like that. She took my interview but I didn’t agree to show the documentary – I didn’t sign anything.”

A handsome young dude with pop star looks named Ozum speaks, who didn’t appear in the documentary. “In September 2005 I met Cathal, I found nothing against him in character. He is always very good. We have to understand that European culture and Nepalese culture are very different; most people are Hindu. He helped to expose the intelligence of Nepalese youth. When the news broke in Kathmandu, I was really very shocked and mournful. I do not believe he was like that. In our society, when men go with women, they are looked at with Devil’s eyes. Neasa is only making money, by damaging somebody’s life. I do not believe Neasa’s documentary.”

Janak Sapkota speaks again: “I was so shocked. I have been with Cathal for the last five years. I have been with him almost all the time when he used to be in Nepal. I have not even sensed a single evidence of what Neasa wants to show in that documentary. I found that Cathal is a beautiful writer. Alongside that he is such a wonderful man, who has helped lots of Nepali people. He loves Nepal a lot. But some… maybe that cultural difference between Ireland and Nepal… the main subject that Neasa picked and described it in a negative sense, that makes Cathal like …” and he trails off, in despair. “I have known Cathal as a guardian, a teacher, a guru, he has been a help to everyone. What Neasa wants to show, that’s totally unbelievable. I do not agree with what I was reading, with what Neasa wants to show in her documentary. Cathal is a beautiful man, a beautiful poet, and he has helped a lot of Nepalese people. That’s not fear of Cathal (speaking) but it is coming to you in this media right now. ”

Yuyutsu RD Sharma, a writer and translator of Ó Searcaigh’s, concludes the DVD. Suave, cultured and in his forties, he speaks of his shock at the news. “The first time we met, Ó Searcaigh said, like Walt Whitman, ‘I want to build bridges across the river Bagmati. I want to make friendships as strong as tree trunks.’ I think this film has shattered those bridges. This film, and the scandal is so negative, and I am shocked and stunned. I have very little idea of what happened, but I am slowly trying to get into things.”

“The passionate intensity of Cathal Ó Searcaigh, his generosity, his legendary fame, has come to his disadvantage. The gusto and exuberance that he had, the passion that he had for Nepal. … This film maker tries to make the whole mess out of it. In the sense that Cathal said, the first time that they met, he said he was openly gay. In Nepal when a man and woman meets, without marriage, it’s called monstrous. Nepalese are in no way able to understand what gay is, although gay literature is being taught at the university. The way that this film maker has tried to tinker with the idea of Cathal Ó Searcaigh’s gay openness is very shocking, very damaging. She has done great disservice to Nepalese literature, Nepalese culture, Nepalese art, Nepalese friendship. All I see is… these innocent boys are with me (in the room), I just met them today … we just came here, there is no pre-planned programme, I’ve been phoning Cathal but with no answer … I am trying to tell people that this is like trying to demonize a gay writer. He is so innocent. He can’t hurt anyone. This is all I know. Did Cathal do violence to anyone? I can’t believe it.”

“If this film-maker had gone to any of the restaurants, she would find loads of teenage girls being used by the Western tourists. You don’t have to go more than one minute from the Buddha Hotel. I wonder why she is not worried about these innocent girls? How she is worried about Cathal’s friends, being “exploited” by Cathal? You’ll see so many teenage girls being everyday being used by these tourists, no investigation required to see this see this sort of thing. She says she’s so sensitive, she’s so worried about her son, about the children.. if she’s so worried, why doesn’t she make a story about Nepal, about these Nepalese children? Why just Cathal? Why just Cathal’s friends? I invite her to come to Nepal, go to all these dance restaurants, she’ll make a wonderful story about child exploitation. But just concentrating on this one person, and then seeing whole world of inhumanity and suffering in this? This is atrocious, this is so biased. This is demonizing Cathal, this is demonizing a gay writer. Like women here demonize men, a transexual man, or a man seen talking to five, six young men, young women, would be seen as a monster. Nepalese society is so sensitive to these things, in its makeup, in its intrinsic relationships, in its large families. At the moment Nepal is passing through a very critical phase. This poet, this prophet, this saint, from Ireland came and tried to help these young people. He translated lots of Nepalese poets in Irish pages. This man was a bridge between Nepal and Ireland, between Nepal and Europe. This man is being demonized. I invite this film maker to come to these restaurants, and find the very visual, very simmering evidences of all that she’s trying to prove with Cathal. And she’ll find none with Cathal. She just has to come. This is absolutely outrageous. I can’t understand all this. I want to say one message. Cathal is openly gay, and I’m telling all my friends that Cathal is going to be one of the greatest writers of the century in the years to come. I am telling my friends, the whole enigma of Cathal. His generosity, his openness, has come to his own disadvantage. And that’s what happens with good people.”

Ní Chianán had assured Naryan that she would remove his interview from the film, but didn’t. The others protest that they did not sign any release forms. Ní Chianán did not even bother introducing herself to Ram, and yet what she implies about his actions is central to her narrative. If this is a film about consent, in all its manifestations, then surely informed consent to take part in a damaging documentary is pertinent? Everyone who took part in her film did so only because they trusted Ó Searcaigh. Why didn’t she have her interviewees sign release forms? Do different film-making rules apply outside of Ireland? Despite their reaction to the film, this DVD is full of invitations to Ní Chianán to come back to Nepal. To meet them, to hear their story, to see the real exploitation for herself, to sit with them and watch the documentary together. There is, understandably, a lot of animosity towards her, they feel she has betrayed their trust, and attacked their friend. They are also outraged at the damage done to their culture, to their country, and to their lives.

Central to this whole story, however, as far as I am concerned, is the dynamic that seems to be the most problematic for a lot of people, the sexual relationship between an older Western man and a younger Asian one. Anyone who sees Fairytale of Kathmandu has to see the this DVD, and, in particular, the segments in which the supposedly victimised and exploited Naryan, now flourishing and confident, speaks bravely and without shame about his relationship with Ó Searcaigh.

Aristotle

In Oscar Wilde’s case, his downfall came about when, at the peak of his career, he sued the Marquess of Queensberry for libel. Defence council Edward Carson discovered a long line of rent boys willing to testify, and so the case collapsed, and criminal charges quickly followed. Wilde knew the dangerous power those mostly working class youths posed to him; he described being with them as “feasting with panthers”. When Wilde heard that it was Carson, an old Trinity rival, who was to oppose him, he remarked “No doubt he will pursue his case with all the added bitterness of an old friend”.

Twenty one years later, Roger Casement was hanged for treason. His own diaries were found and circulated by British officials in order to discredit him; scribblings salaciously listing his many sexual exploits with men, especially youths he met out cruising at night in Europe and abroad. Appeals by his many supporters for clemency were, as a result, ignored.

A hero’s tragic flaw is one which is self-inflicted. The poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh, with the same taste for post-pubescent youths as Casement and Wilde, (which makes them pederasts, not paedophiles) welcomes a film crew into his life in Nepal, and the resulting damning documentary, Fairytale of Kathmandu, has become defamatory evidence that, at the time of writing, may or may not be used in a court of law against him.

You will have to wait till March 11th to see the documentary itself, when RTÉ broadcasts it. It’s a honey trap of a film; it starts off lyrical and soft, elegiac for the most part, a lilting portrayal of a popular charismatic figure and the obvious heartfelt love that surrounds him in Kathmandu. In the months that she is there with him, however, the director, his friend and neighbour Neasa Ní Chianán, also records the frequent visits to his hotel by young men, who often stay the night, and become his friend for a few days or a few weeks, and sometimes longer. We hear some boys talking and joking about the many, many young friends he has, laughing about the numbers. Unaccountably, the director doesn’t ask Ó Searcaigh about them at the time, nor talk directly to the youths herself. It wasn’t until the cynical, jaded hotel manager talked about Western exploitation that her “eyes were opened”. (One has to remember that this same hotelier had been happy to have Ó Searcaigh as a regular guest for years.) Then, and only after Ó Searcaigh had left Kathmandu, she puts the word out, decides to interview some of the youths (all 16 or over) with a counsellor. They tell tales of confusion, hurt feelings, shame about feeling that they had been “bought”, and anger. Which is, after all, exactly what she was looking for – the Nepalese are obliging to Westerners, whom they see as gods. Most of all, what comes across from them are stories of lost innocence.

Innocence is the theme of the film, a collective Fall from Eden. Although Ní Chianán portrays herself as having been innocent, only realising, with shame, that the subject of her biography had been busy having a sex life throughout her stay in Nepal, right in front of her eyes, it is not mentioned that she had already spent a winter filming him for a previous documentary, The Poet, The Shopkeeper and the Babu (2006). If I am to believe that her statements in the film are authentic, and not disingenuous, then she is guilty of letting her own freely-admitted hero-worship of Ó Searcaigh get in the way of what this documentary should have been: a piercing and fearless exploration of the man’s voracious sexual appetites, and how he squares it with his exquisitely sensitive nature. However, perhaps because she was nursing her second child during the shoot, and feeling very maternal and protective, which she freely admits, she avoided grasping the thorny issue of his sexual exploits until he had left the country. So, crucially, he is not present to hear his accusers, to respond, to account for himself.

This is not to say that it is right that he should leave so many ex-lovers unhappy, nor that he apparently bedded some of them under false pretences; but I am not convinced that an adolescent’s loss of innocence (over the age of consent) is necessarily the sin that Ní Chianán makes it out to be. It is a mother’s desire that children are protected for as long as possible from hurt and pain – it is only natural. But it is also important to recognise that, at some stage, that one’s children will make mistakes, will have sex, which is often disturbing and confusing. They will grow up. Boys become men. To interpret the experience of a teenager having sex with an older man for the first time as de facto abuse, and to see him only as a victim, is potentially disempowering, shaming, and even castrating. Seeing herself as a rescuer, setting up a trust fund for Ó Searcaigh’s“victims” so they can receive psychosexual counselling is, in my professional opinion, as a working psychotherapist, inappropriate and potentially unhelpful. The hurt that Ní Chianán discovered in the boys she interviewed was relational, in that they didn’t like their experiences with Ó Searcaigh. Their complaints should have been brought directly to the man himself, then and there, so we, the audience, could understand for ourselves the interpersonal dynamics, could judge for ourselves what had happened between them. There is no evidence to suggest that he would have refused this exploration; indeed, perhaps, unconsciously, it is what he was inviting, for we men can insulate ourselves from women’s perspectives on sexuality and relationships, often to our detriment. Instead, his erstwhile friend returns to Ireland and ambushes him with her accusations, and his shocked, defensive, blustering response is what ends the film. This lack of natural justice is why I am so angry with the film makers.

It took them two winters in Nepal to finally address the elephant in the room: the man who put cruising into the Irish language (ag crúsáil) was cruising, all the time. It’s there in the documentary, you can see him strutting through the streets of Kathmandu, late at night, his boys following behind him, cock of the walk. Some of the youths in his life are timid and shy – although it is impossible to know whether the pained awkwardness we see in one youth in particular, being treated to ice cream, is the result of being with Ó Searcaigh or having a Western film crew focussed on his every facial expression. Lest anyone think that we Westerners are bringing our evil ways to the innocent East, there are cruising areas in Kathmandu, and one, a small cruising park in the centre of the city, has between 100-200 guys visiting every night. There are trained outreach workers to spread the safe sex message, and a drop-in centre for gay people – with a staff of 23. There is even an annual gay pride march.

Desire makes fools of us all, and when it expresses itself outside of a relationship of equal status and common interests, which is what many people like to think sex should be about, especially women, then it brings its own contradictions, pleasures and pains. Ní Chianán really doesn’t understand this kind of sex, but, most unprofessionally, didn’t seem to want to understand. The first lad in the documentary who spends the night with Ó Searcaigh, a seventeen-year-old called Ram, seems at ease with him the next day and Ní Chianán’s voice-over seems mystified as to why this might be: “they were worlds apart”. Her curiosity should have been expressed to the poet, then and there. But then, we’d have had a very different kind of film, adult, intelligent and non-exploitative, instead of a pained but nevertheless vindictive response to her own disappointment, that her hero has feet of clay. In Fairytale of Kathmandu, we have a man innocent enough to believe that his friend would not become his nemesis, threaten him with criminal proceedings using the film as evidence, and refuse to supply him with a copy of the film so he could defend himself properly once it had begun being shown and marketed, when his very openness about matters sexual would have meant that he could have explained himself to his accusers on film, long before it had got to that stage. Ó Searcaigh’s hamartia, or tragic flaw, is that he was too trusting.

Apparently, Ní Chianán had an unfilmed conversation with the poet after she had completed the film, and she asked him to consider therapy, to reform himself. According to her, they parted on good terms, with a hug. His subsequent refusal to reform was interpreted by her as evidence that he was an unapologetic recidivist child abuser, to judge by the way she writes and speaks about him now. The answer may be far more complex and uncomfortable: this man, like many men and indeed some women, has a form of sexuality that is transgressive, and seeks to push the limits of desire as far as he can. At its root may indeed be a broken heart, as Ní Chianán alludes to in the film, and a desire to avoid the painful feelings of being dependent, of being possessive and obsessive. But it may also be driven by delight in pleasure, a love of beauty and gentleness, and a lack of shame about sex. He certainly needs to address the issues raised in the film about exploitation, and come to terms with the implications of being a rich Westerner in a poor country, and how that is a perilous path. He most definitely needs to face his accusers. But it occurred to me, as I was watching a few of the lads later on in the film, who were laughing genially and expressively at his every word, but not really getting his literary references, that they were humouring the old codger. Exploitation can be a two-way street, especially when it comes to sex.

“It is the Hera archetype that makes us see Priapus as distorted as we do” says the writer James Hillman. What he’s saying is that the more we look at relationships and sex from a matronly, family-orientated perspective, the more grotesque, threatening and repellent the male sex drive seems. This film is so biassed. Indeed, it is worse, it is prejudicial and punitive. Cathal Ó Searcaigh’s side of the story, in all its uncomfortable complexity, has yet to be told.

This article was originally published in Hot Press. See also the young men’s own story here. I discussed the documentary on The Kiosk with Nadine O’Regan on Phantom FM on Saturday 15th March. An edited version of this article was reproduced in Village magazine, April 2008.