Since I was a little girl, I had always been ingrained in Irish culture. When I was younger, my dad owned an Irish bar called Finnegan’s Wake, and it was my home away from home since I could remember. I share so many fond memories in that place with my family. From watching live Irish music performances on St. Patrick’s Day or playing tag with my brother throughout the place, I loved every second of being there. It also gave me a chance to connect with my Irish heritage. The bar closed when I was fourteen, and when it shut down, it left a pit in my ability to celebrate my culture with my family.
Then my sister showed me the movie Sing Street. The film followed an Irish boy named Conor, living in Dublin during the 1980s recession in Ireland. He was forced to move to an all-boys Christian brothers school because of his family’s financial status. I, too, was about to go to an all-girls Catholic school, so I found myself relating to Conor in his struggles of moving schools. Out of his pain, he developed a profound love for music from his brother, and he decided to start a band. From my first watch, I loved this movie and all the songs that it included. I had never watched a movie that felt so down-to-earth and true to its message.
This trip gave me the same sense of nerves as I did when changing schools. I had never traveled before without my family being with me, so I felt distant, but I also had never felt more connected to them 3,000 miles away. I walked around the city, and found myself increasingly thinking about Sing Street and how the soundtrack made me feel the first time I listened to it. Music is more important than anything else in the world to me. So, I decided to walk to where they filmed the movie at Synge Street’s Christian Brothers School.
As I walked along the streets of Dublin, I heard live music blasting out of almost every pub. I called my dad and told him all about it. Once I made it to Synge Street, it felt empty. How had a set of a movie that altered my life been just another building on a street? Why wasn’t there a plaque to acknowledge that it was filmed here? But I remembered that the beauty of art is how you relate to it. To Dubliners, this is just another school, but to me, it was where I grew in my love for Ireland. As I walked back to the hostel, I put in my headphones and listened to my favorite song from the movie, “Drive It Like You Stole It.”