Titled after the autobiography of Mici MacGowan, who left his native Donegal for the United States in the late 1880s, this documentary portrays the Irish experience in America at its harshest. MacGowan’s early life as a migrant worker traveling between Ireland and Scotland acts as prelude to his departure for America and subsequent trek to the Yukon in search of gold. Narrated by passages from MacGowan’s book and illustrated with footage from documentary and fiction films of the period, Rotha Mor an Tsaoil won this year’s Best Irish Documentary prize at the Irish Film and Television Academy Awards.

Vincent Coll, aka "Mad Dog" Coll, was one of the most prominent gangsters during Prohibition in New York. A native of Gweedore along Ireland’s northwestern coastline, Coll arrived in New York impoverished and uneducated but rose to become one of the city’s most famous mobsters––the embodiment of Irish success in America writ large. With evocative footage from the period setting the scene, this documentary traces Coll’s growing infamy, from his early days in Ireland to the Jazz Age highlife of New York in the twenties.