New video examines early Kells history

Kells residents need to be warned - the roughly-dressed 'monks' which might be seen sprinting away with their valuables from marauding raiders in the town centre in the coming weeks will be part of the cast of a video on the town"s earliest history. The video is being directed by Rex Lee, Kenlis Place, and his company, Kells Media Productions. Rex fulfilled a life"s ambition over a decade ago when he added a Master"s degree to a BA he had begun, specialising in media studies. The former nursery co-operative manager succeeded in securing funding from the Broadcast Commission of Ireland, and quickly enlisted many locals and historians to pull together the half-hour video entitled 'The Early History of Kells". The project has been an education for Rex, too, since he has learned even more about his native town and district, aided by Fr Gerry Rice, Willie Carr, Aidan Wall, Joe Rourke, John Nelson, Alan and Linda Grant, Vinny Ginnity and his 'very good producer', John Grant. The challenge is nearly completed, with post-production underway but the scene of early monks trying to shepherd their valuables away from raiders will clinch the external scenes on the video. The project has already taken four months as it nears completion. Rex"s next challenge is to find a broadcaster to show the production. His study of the earliest days of Kells has already turned one local belief on its head - the standard 'founding" of the town in 800AD by Columban monks fleeing the Viking raids on the Scottish island of Iona, their head monastery. 'The historians now point to a Southern Uí Néill relative of Colmcille making a land grant to him in the Kells area long before that,' says Rex. There might well have been a small settlement there even before the main group arrived in 800AD, while the Columban monks had other houses, including that in Derry. He tends to regard the early monks as 'priests in armour', given the firm resistance they offered the early Viking raiders. He draws the opening story to a close by the 13th century, when the Gaelic monks were operating alongside a new Norman order, the Knight Hospitallers who would set up a major monastery in nearby Kilmainham. The new video includes some striking images and records of those dark days, as well as an old English poem, 'The Battle of Maldon", outlining the horrific impact of raiding Vikings. He has spent days trying to achieve a sepia effect of Laytown beach, shot as a likely landing spot for the raiders. He"s also very grateful to Province 5"s Kevin Mac NaMidhe, whose experience he"s drawn heavily on for location shots and other production tips. Rex Lee"s enthusiasm for film production goes further, as his screenplay about an Irish-American family torn apart by the Red Scare era of 60 years ago is currently doing the rounds of producers in Hollywood. It"s been slow progress to date, Rex concedes, 'but there are a lot more producers out there!' The Hollywood script, which took Rex 18 months to write, has been forwarded to 10 producers in the US. And he is already contemplating his next production, possibly an animation feature, as there are so many qualified workers in that sector in this country. 'I"ve been writing all my life and learned a lot from films, particularly the way Hollywood represented history,' he says.