Nial’s film-making shines a light on dark subjects

Fulton, who has since been widely acclaimed as a documentary maker, might never have got the chance to make his name on the screen – not to mention produce some hard-hitting work that has at times rocked the establishment in Australia, where he now lives.

Documentaries – made with journalist Sarah Ferguson – such as ‘Hitting Home’, which looked at domestic abuse, and ‘Revelation’ which revealed the extent of sexual and physical abuse by clerics in the Australian Catholic Church, have won both awards and critical acclaim.

And yet, he could have been a pilot serving in the RAF only, as Fulton admits, it was probably just as well that he wasn’t.

He said: “I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do after school and in a moment of pure madness I headed off to London to join the RAF.

“Luckily someone in the officer’s mess thought it wasn’t the best idea to put me in a fighter jet.

“I was appalling at maths, physics and biology, so was left to sort through all the right brain stuff.”

As an alternative career path, Fulton headed off to Queen’s University, Belfast to complete a degree in Architecture. However, he admits it was just as well that idea also went by the wayside.

He added: “I chose Architecture because I was handy at sketching but there wasn’t much of a plan beyond getting up to Queen’s and putting some shape to things. I never mastered a scale ruler, so I would have been a hopeless architect!

“The idea of becoming a producer was like wanting to become an astronaut. It sounded like it might be fun but not something for the likes of me and anyway, there were very few films being made in Northern Ireland so it wasn’t exactly a smart career move.”

Before the career crossroads that he would end up in, Fulton – the son of Fermanagh football legend Sandy – grew up near Enniskillen.

He said: “I grew up just outside the town – so, not a proper townie – in a pebble-dashed bungalow on the Shore Road. My mother’s family were farmers from Littlemount and my father’s people came from Magherafelt.

“Eight of dad’s uncles fought with the Inniskillings and were known as the ‘Fighting McIllrees’.

“They were wild men and my mother suspected a bit of that hooliganism had made its way down the lough to Devenish Crescent.

“When I was a cub, my father built full-size goalposts at the back of our house and I was always in nets.

“He delighted in dinking and weaving past me, leaving me flat on my a*** as he flamboyantly backheeled the ball into the goal, before celebrating like [Scotland’s] Archie Gemmill against the Dutch[in the 1978 World Cup].

“When he was a young fella playing for his beloved Enniskillen Rangers, Chelsea and Wolves invited him over to England for trials.

“But in those days, Fermanagh was a long way from anywhere and he couldn’t afford the price of a ferry ticket.

“It wasn’t until after he died that I came to understand what a talent he had been and what an opportunity he had missed.”

Portora Royal High School then entered the young Nial’s life, where he thrived on the encouragement provided by his teachers.

He continued: “I have fond memories of Portora. We had many brilliant teachers who tolerated our boundless stupidity and pointed us north again when we lost the run of ourselves.

“My history teacher, Phil Galbraith, will be delighted I employed my knowledge of Russian history for my son’s school project and surprised no one by getting it spectacularly wrong.

“I still bring a notebook and pen everywhere I go, sketching and doodling, and think often about how we conspired to disappoint poor Dougie Hutton daily.”

With architecture and the RAF now out of the window, Fulton stumbled into a job as a location manager – one that would put him on the path towards film-making.

“I became a location manager by accident,” he said. “The Northern Ireland Film & Television Commission wanted someone to compile a database of locations.

“Because I was from Fermanagh and a decent photographer, they gave me a fancy car, a camera and a map and sent me on my way.

“It wasn’t long before I realised there was a bit more to the job than finding nice castles and waterfalls.

“The logistics of moving a film unit around was like moving a small army. They needed food, water, electricity, toilets and the least amount of distance between the unit and the location.

“It is without a doubt the most difficult and thankless job on any set. You are first in, last out and the cause of everyone’s problems.”

Move Down Under

Then came the move to Australia – which itself had its own roots in Fermanagh with a meeting with the relative of one of the nation’s best-known TV actors.

Nial said: “I met my Australian wife Abbey in Belfast when she came over to visit her uncle, and actor, Adrian Dunbar, who himself is from Fermanagh as well.

“Adrian and I were working on a film together and it was one of those ‘Sliding Doors’ moments. Abbey and I were on our first date in Mullaghmore when I got a call to say dad had died suddenly at home so Abbey’s introduction to my family wasn’t exactly as I had hoped.

“After our first son was born in London, we decided to move to Sydney. I had no job lined up and no idea how to get one, so I ended up writing my own scripts.”

One such script, ‘The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce’, would be a turning point for Fulton – who admittedly had some help from a couple of Fermanagh lads.

“A former priest called Paul Collins told me the story of Alexander Pearce,” he said.

“Pearce hailed from Clones in County Monaghan and had been transported to Australia and later Van Diemen’s Land, now Tasmania, for stealing shoes.

“He later escaped the brutal penal island of Macquarie Island and went on the run with seven other prisoners. A few months later, Pearce was captured and admitted he had butchered and eaten some of his companions.

“As I dug deeper into the story, I discovered a priest, Philip Connolly, also from Monaghan, had taken the cannibal’s confession in a dank Hobart dungeon. I based our script on the four confessions Pearce made to Connolly on the eve of his execution.

“The late Kevin Dawson at RTE loved the story and the Australian public broadcaster ABC came on board too.

“I called Adrian Dunbar and Ciaran McMenamin and asked if they fancied coming down to Tasmania. It would fast become one of the most enjoyable experiences of my career.

“We shot the film in many of the same locations Pearce had made his escape, in some of the most spectacular wilderness in the world. It was a wild trip and we all forged lifelong friendships.

“Although we made the film on the sniff of an oily rag, it went on to win a few awards and critical acclaim.

“It will never not be funny that three Fermanagh men went into the Tasmanian bush to make a film about a cannibal and a priest from Clones!”

Fulton then decided to go for broke and he and another set up a film-making company, called In Films, with their first documentary series, ‘Borderland’ being a success.

He said: “Shortly after I set up In Films with Dutch journalist and film-maker Ivan O’Mahoney, we were approached to produce a series to launch Al Jazeera in the United States.

“Alongside Alex Gibney and Joe Berlinger – two of the world’s most critically acclaimed and successful documentary producers – we were asked to come up with something to solidify the network’s place in an already crowded media landscape.

“Coincidently, we had been reading about a morgue on the American/Mexican border that was overflowing with unidentified bodies, many of whom had died crossing the treacherous Sonora desert.

“So, we called the morgue, they agreed to allow us to film and would go on to tell the stories of three dead immigrants, travelling to Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico.

“It was a hugely ambitious project and a proper baptism of fire but it helped put us on the map.”

Collaboration

A collaboration with renowned journalist Sarah Ferguson led to a number of projects that followed ‘Borderland’.

One was ‘Revelation’ which won widespread acclaim with Nial being thanked by the New Zealand Royal Commission of Inquiry Into Abuse in Care.

“Following the Catholic Church child abuse scandal in Ireland,” said Nial, “Australia faced its own reckoning during a five-year Royal Commission.

“Hundreds of victims gave harrowing evidence about how they had suffered unimaginable abuse at the hands of priests, religious brothers and nuns and how their Church had orchestrated an institutional cover-up.

“For many, their suffering was exacerbated by the fact no one believed them. What Sarah and I resolved to do was expose the architects of this cover-up and examine how cardinals, archbishops and bishops conspired to protect paedophiles over vulnerable children in their care.

“Despite the revulsion we felt, we knew these paedophile priests presented an opportunity to finally reveal who had protected them. At the time we were making the series, no senior church official had been charged with concealing evidence or obstruction of justice. I’m delighted to say that is no longer the case.”

A decision was made during filming to interview two of the priests involved in the scandal – Father Vincent Ryan and Brother Bernard McGrath.

Nial added: “We undertook the interviews with the support of their victims, many of whom wanted their abusers to face a final public reckoning.

“The practical difficulties were immense and it took almost 18 months to secure access to film the two criminal trials in the New South Wales District Court and secure the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the presiding judges, the respective legal teams and the accused.

“It was the first time cameras were permitted inside a child sex abuse trial anywhere in the world, and the first time a convicted child abuser has confessed their crimes on camera.

“The scale of the abuse perpetrated by the Brothers of St. John of God is staggering. I was interested in this order because they had come to Australia and New Zealand from Ireland, and over half its members had allegations of child sexual abuse against them.

“Due to this extraordinary number of offenders, several were in front of the courts during the Australian Royal Commission, so avoided further investigation.

“Many of the boys who had been abused were some of the most vulnerable people imaginable, many with learning and physical disabilities.

“Now men in their forties and fifties, they had suffered in silence for decades.

“Brother Bernard McGrath was about to face his fifth sex abuse trial when we approached him. McGrath had been protected by his order for three decades.

“They even sent him to the United States to get ‘treatment’ in a church-run facility for paedophile priests. McGrath consented to us filming his trial and agreed to an interview inside his maximum security prison in New South Wales.

“It was during that interview, that he revealed the names of the men who had concealed his prolific sexual abuse of children and admitted his order had protected him.

“We felt vindicated in our decision to engage with McGrath but more importantly, many of his victims felt they had finally been believed.”

Fulton is currently working on a new project but insists he’s keeping quiet as to what it’s about just now due to the sensitivity of material within it.

Despite living ‘down under’, travelling extensively and collecting awards for his work, does he still manage to get back home to Fermanagh?

He said: “I haven’t been home for a few years. My mother died suddenly in 2015, and it was a deeply painful experience, having to say goodbye to not only mum, but our family home.

“Anyone who has lost their parents knows that awful, howling grief that leaves you untethered. For the longest time, I couldn’t imagine returning to Fermanagh, but something has shifted recently.

“My sons are 18 and 20 now and just about fit and ready to make a pilgrimage to Blake’s for a pint or two.”