A Quiet Love: A Six-Decade Cross-Community Romance
For over sixty years, John and Agnes Carberry have shared a love story that quietly transcended the sectarian divisions of their upbringing in Northern Ireland.
Long before integrated education became common in Northern Ireland, a school in Jordanstown offered a rare opportunity for Catholic and Protestant deaf children to learn alongside one another.
"Nowadays it's become quite topical, whereas we were doing it before the rest of Northern Ireland was," John reflected.
"There were never bad words against each other or any sort of animosity because of religion. It just didn't exist in the deaf community."
John comes from a Catholic background and grew up in west Belfast, while Agnes is from a Protestant background, originating from the Silent Valley.
Their cross-community relationship is one of three featured in the internationally acclaimed documentary A Quiet Love, Ireland's first feature film in Irish Sign Language (ISL).
'Our independence was stripped away'
The film explores the challenges deaf people faced during The Troubles, a nearly 30-year conflict in Northern Ireland that resulted in over 3,500 deaths.
John and Agnes describe the disapproval they encountered from family and society, as well as the difficulty of navigating bombings and gunfire without the ability to hear.
John explained their reasons for participating in the film: "It was an opportunity to bring out what it was like over the hard times of The Troubles as deaf people."
"It really did affect deaf people's lives, our social lives, so much about us. Our independence was stripped away," he added.
Despite these hardships, John and Agnes emphasize that love ultimately prevailed over hate.
John said, "We have had a lot of documentaries and books about the Troubles and the dark times, [but] where's the good stories?"
Agnes added, "What that brought was just hatred to the country. We've been able to show love and peace and equality by being together."
A Landmark Film in Irish Sign Language
A Quiet Love marks a first for an Irish feature film, produced by a team of deaf and hearing individuals, and incorporates both Irish Sign Language and British Sign Language.
John remarked, "It's great to hear people say, 'oh my gosh, I didn't realise there are two languages existing here in Ireland'. And they're not languages that have come from spoken Irish and English, they are their own languages in their own right, so it's been marvellous."
Agnes said, "It's wonderful that both our languages are there on the big screen."
The documentary presents the remarkable love stories of three couples. Alongside John and Agnes, audiences meet an LGBTQI+ couple, Kathy and Michelle, who navigate parenthood with deaf and hearing children, and Seán and Deyanna, a deaf boxer and his hearing partner facing a life-altering decision.
The film was directed by Garry Keane and co-produced by Anne Heffernan and Seán Herlihy of Curious North Productions.
Garry said he had contemplated making a feature film with the deaf community for about 12 years, having previously worked on smaller projects with Anne, and described it as "one of the highlights" of his career.
'Beautiful eye contact'
Anne explained that the decision to document three love stories was inspired by her being "especially moved by the intimacy between deaf couples" and the "beautifully cinematic" nature of sign language.
"You'll notice this beautiful eye contact that happens between couples when they're there, because they obviously have to look at each other when they're signing," she said.
"That beauty inspired the film's theme, which we explore through three very different couples, each offering their own nuanced glimpse into a community many people know of but rarely see up close."
Garry described the project as "quite an unusual thing" for him, given his previous humanitarian work in the Middle East, which often involved difficult subject matter.
"I work in a lot of humanitarian stuff, and stuff that's really probably hard to watch at times and certainly hard to bear at times. So it was a lovely breath of fresh air," he said.
Global Recognition and Community Impact
The film has been screened at festivals worldwide, from New Zealand to the United States, and has won several awards, including the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award at the Global Production Awards in Cannes and the Audience Choice Award at the San Diego International Film Festival.
However, the most meaningful recognition has come from the deaf community itself.
Anne told NI, "We've had people coming up to us saying, 'I never imagined that I would sit in a cinema like this with other deaf people and watch stories about my life and my experience on screen'."
"I was really emotional... you could see people kind of welling up at just the experience of being there and they really did feel that they could see themselves on screen. That part is really, really special."
For John and Agnes, the film provided an opportunity not only to share their story—one that even some of their grandchildren had never heard—but also to broaden understanding of what it means to be deaf.
Agnes said, "At the end of the day, we're just people, we're people who have relationships and they can be good, we can be funny, we can be happy."
"We're just people like anybody else... with feelings and emotions and experiences."
When asked about the secret to their more than 60 years of marriage, John and Agnes answered simply:
"Love. Love always will win for us."
A Quiet Love is currently showing in selected cinemas across the island of Ireland.
