Saipan filmmaker told he was going to ‘open old wounds’
By Bairbre Holmes, PA
The producer of the upcoming film Saipan was told he was “mad” to work on a movie about the row between Mick McCarthy and Roy Keane at the 2002 World Cup, and that he was “just going to open old wounds”.
Saipan tells the story of the infamous fallout between the Irish football manager McCarthy and his star player Keane ahead of the World Cup in South Korea and Japan 23 years ago.
Speaking at a gala screening of the movie at Belfast Film Festival, Trevor Birney said he was told “friendships that have never been the same again since 2002 are going to be challenged again”.
Even as a five-year-old, one of the movie’s stars, Eanna Hardwicke, said he “distinctly” remembers the heightened emotions in Ireland after the clash between Keane and McCarthy at pre-tournament training in Saipan, a small island in the Pacific Ocean.
“I remember different adults telling me that this is the opinion I should hold about this event and going: What’s going on?
It's the final day of Belfast Film Festival!
We still have plenty for you to see, including tickets to our additional screening of Saipan!
Tickets here: https://t.co/9m4NOR7tie pic.twitter.com/w9iO7JTjQ8— Belfast Film Festival (@BelfastFilmFes1) November 8, 2025
“Why am I being told this thing that I should say?”
Adding his own memories of the event made it “all the more satisfying” to step into the role as Keane.
The Cork native said there were heightened emotions too when he told his mother he’d be playing one of the city’s most famous figures, saying: “I think she sort of laughed and cried.”
He added that “the people who go on from your city and do amazing things, like Roy did, hold a huge kind of power over your imagination”.
While he has not met the former Manchester United captain, Hardwicke said “every second person” in Cork has a story about him, making it a “daunting” role to play.
One childhood hero he did get to meet was his co-star Steve Coogan, who plays Mick McCarthy.
He described the actor and comedian as “one of the best and he’s also great fun”, but was less complimentary about his soccer skills, saying: “We’re both suitably matched, in that neither of us will be natural footballers.”
Also present at the screening was Co Down man Alistair Evans, who wore a 23-year-old t-shirt emblazoned with Roy Keane’s face and the words: “KEANO INNOCENT”.
The football fan almost cancelled his trip to Asia for the 2002 World Cup after Ireland’s captain was sent home from the tournament.
When he got there he found the travelling fans split: “I remember being outside a pub, and there was a crowd singing for Roy Keane and there was a crowd of us singing for McCarthy.
“It was all a bit surreal.”
Belfast filmmakers Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn said showing the film at their hometown festival “means a huge amount”.
The pair have previously directed Good Vibrations (2012), set in Belfast’s punk rock scene during the Troubles, and Ordinary Love (2019) which follows a couple after a cancer diagnosis.
Despite not being a football fan, Barros D’Sa said “there is so much more” to the story than sport, as “it speaks about national identity and it’s about masculinity”.
Leyburn added “it’s a great psychological story between two characters who are set on a collision course toward each other”.
He said despite it being a distinctly Irish story the universal themes meant it “went down really, really well” at screenings in the UK and Canada.
Saipan opens in cinemas on December 26.
