Charlie Bird sadly passed away earlier this year.
He was an incredible journalist and broadcaster during his lifetime.
Over the course of his career, he was sent to report on the arrest and imprisonment of Fr Niall O’Brien who was an Irish Columban Missionary priest falsely accused and detained in the Philippines on multiple murder charges.
He was one of the journalists at the fore of the peace process in Northern Ireland in the 1990s.
His final documentary, Ransom ’79, will now be released in cinemas later this year.
It tells the story of legendary Irish reporter Charlie Bird and his determination to break one final story before his life is cut short by Motor Neurone Disease.
Charlie’s sources have given him an extraordinary true crime story, one that had remained secret for decades – the attempt by a criminal gang to extort millions from the Irish government. The disease had taken Charlie’s voice. But clever use of technology means he can still do interviews – using a voice app on his iPad – and, even as his strength falters, he keeps chasing the story.
The documentary charts Charlie’s investigation and reconstructs a scarcely-believable sequence of events that led from farce to tragedy, in a very different Ireland.
But beneath it all, the film is an exploration of how one man confronting his own mortality can find respite in doing the thing he loves, even in the most terrible of circumstances.
Ransom ’79 will be released in cinemas from Friday, 24th May
