In this Film Ireland podcast, Gemma Creagh talks to Producer Fergus Dowd & Ex-Debenhams worker Carol Ann Bridgeman about 406 Days.
The film tells the story of the 1,000 Irish Debenhams workers who were made redundant through a generic email on the 9th of April 2020 after Debenhams UK Retail Ltd closed all 11 Irish stores including their flagship store on Henry St. Dublin 1. The workforce, 95% female, had been denied an earlier agreed redundancy package.
They voted to go on official strike and blocked stock being removed from the 11 stores by the liquidator. The workers remained on the picket lines, through the Covid 19 pandemic for 406 days, making it the longest industrial dispute in Irish labour history. It finally ended in May 2021 through a compromise government-sponsored proposal based on a retraining fund.
But the telling of the very human stories of courage, determination, and friendship that lay behind the conflict are told here for the first time in ‘406 days-The Debenhams Picket Line’.
406 Days opens at cinemas across the country on 26th May 2023.
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Fergus Dowd
Fergus Dowd is a documentary producer and writer whose filmmaking career grew out of his involvement with the Debenhams workers' dispute during the COVID-19 pandemic. By profession, Dowd worked as an IT systems analyst, and he came to filmmaking somewhat unexpectedly rather than through a conventional film-industry career.
During the 406-day Debenhams dispute, Dowd became closely involved with the workers and co-authored the book Tales From the Debenhams Picket Line with Sue O'Connell. The book collected the experiences of workers who remained on picket lines after approximately 1,000 Irish Debenhams employees were made redundant in April 2020.
That work led to his collaboration with filmmaker Joe Lee on the 2023 documentary 406 Days – The Debenhams Picket Line. Dowd served as producer, production manager and researcher, while Lee directed and edited the film. Dowd's existing relationships with the former workers were important to the film's approach, which centred on their personal experiences of the dispute.
406 Days premiered at the Dublin International Film Festival in 2023 and subsequently won the festival's Audience Award and ICCL Human Rights Award, as well as the Dublin Film Critics Circle award for Best Irish Documentary.