Ruán Magan

Who is Ruán Magan?

Ruán Magan is a director of documentaries and drama-documentaries based in Ireland, but working internationally. Born in Dublin in 1968, he was educated in Gonzaga College and University College Dublin before embarking on a career in feature films in 1989. He progressed successfully through the established SIPTU union grades, from trainee assistant director to location manager and production manager, working on series of major feature films including Far and Away, Devil's Own and Michael Collins.

He directed and filmed his first documentary in 1996 featuring his brother, the writer, Manchán Magan, beginning of a long collaboration during which they made over 60 documentaries filmed across the planet, in India, North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and China. Critically acclaimed, many of these documentaries have been transmitted internationally.

In 2006 he won an IFTA as producer of In Search of the Pope's Children, featuring the economist, David McWilliams. The Struggle, an examination of significant events in the Irish Civil War and the roles played by Ernie O'Malley and Mangan's grandmother Sighle Humphreys, was screened in the first Irish Reels Festival in 2004 while The Ghosts of Duffy's Cut, co-directed with Stephen Rooke, was nominated for an IFTA in 2006 and short-listed for an Emmy.