Clerys department store on Dublin's O'Connell Street has witnessed countless romances blossoming beneath its beautiful two-sided clock, a meeting point for Dubliners and those visiting from out of town since the 1920s.

Some of their stories, ranging from the heartwarming to the hilarious to the very poignant, have been captured in a new Irish film, Under the Clock, from the producers of the wonderful Older than Ireland.

While the interviewees all have one thing in common - meeting under that iconic clock - their lives have all followed very different trajectories from the star-crossed teenagers whose marriage is still going strong, to those unions thwarted by alcoholism or abuse.

Director Colm Nicell of Snackbox Films - the company that previously produced the wonderful Older than Ireland - certainly has a talent for encouraging people to open up on camera. His interviewees are candid about their feelings and share very personal details about their lives. It's a delightful, uplifting film featuring a gaggle of utterly charming Irish characters.

Providing some of the wittiest moments in the film is Ann Ball, whose recollections of the Dublin of her youth are priceless. These days she lives in Glasnevin but she’s originally from Old Cabra.

From the age of 14 Ann would get the bus into town and meet friends 'under the clock' before going to The Apartment club near O’Connell Street for dancing and romance. She met her husband under the clock four decades ago.

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“Muggins came over to me in The Apartment and asked me to dance,” she recalls. “He was like nothing on earth and I was probably worse. Then of course he gave me the aul kiss in the lane outside and burnt a hole in my jacket while he was doing it,” she says.

“The kiss was gorgeous... I’ll tell the truth, he gave me a lovely wear. He wore the face off me, then he asked me would I meet him and I said ‘right’ and he asked me to go to the flicks.

“I did meet him, under the clock, but I was there first so I had hide around the corner and straighten myself up and pretend I was only just after coming, ‘Jesus, I’m only arriving!’ after spending 45 minutes sweating around the corner.”

She laughs, “I thought his name for Robert for three weeks. His name was Bernard. It does sound a bit like Robert. I remember saying to my friend, ‘Imagine if I married him, I’d be Mrs Ball!’ like, would you ever? But I am Mrs Ball – for over 40 years now!”

Kathleen and Peter Cullen have also shared many happy years together since they first began meeting under the clock every Friday when they were just 16 and 17 respectively. Initially, however, their parents did not approve, much like the Montagues and Capulets of Romeo and Juliet.

“I ran away from home and my father caught up with me and we did a deal – I would come home if I was allowed to go into the city centre on Fridays to meet Kathleen,” reveals Peter. “But overcoming Kathleen’s parents was a bit more difficult.”

Peter eventually managed to win Kathleen’s father around – with “a few bags of shite”.

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He explains, “Her father was bemoaning the fact that his sizeable garden that he’d had for years - putting home-grown vegetables on the table - was just exhausted from constant use. So he was looking for farmyard manure, on the northside of Dublin.”

Peter, living on a farm, happened to have plenty manure and he loaded up a few tonnes on a trailer and presented it to Kathleen’s father.

“He was absolutely overjoyed. When he called out to Kathleen’s mother, ‘Put a steak on for that man’ I thought, mission accomplished! It wasn’t a great deal – I got a beautiful wife and a steak dinner, he got a few bags of shite. He had six daughters so I think maybe he was willing to trade one!” he laughs.

Peter and Kathleen are clearly still very much in love and Kathleen reveals that taking part in the film, in which they open up to the audience - and each other - about how they feel about each other, has "started us into another phase in our relationship".

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Peter, in particular, says some beautiful things about his wife in the film, and his outpouring of emotion came as a surprise to Kathleen.

"I never thought Peter could be romantic! He’s the the kind of man who doesn’t wax lyrical about his feelings, ever. He never, ever did that and the next thing there he is with a film crew in our home saying the nicest things he’s ever said in his life to me," she tells Independent.ie

"Oh my God, I’m not joking, it has definitely started us into a different phase of our relationship. He had all these thoughts and feelings and it wasn’t until he put himself into that position where he felt comfortable to talk about it."

She adds, "[Director] Colm has a gift for getting people to talk and be frank about life. I didn’t know [Peter] ever thought those things. It was very moving for me. He just never said it. Peter would look at me in a certain way. He’s the kindest man in the world. We’ve lived such a charmed life and I know he loves me without him ever having to say it, but when he did it blew my mind."

Peter explains, "Lots of men I know don’t feel able to say how they feel about their wives. It’s all, ‘oh I have to bring the wife with me’ and things like that. I think it’s difficult for men to articulate how they feel."

Colm spent two of three hours with each individual or couple featured in the film. He says, "It’s amazing how comfortable you can make somebody just by having a general chat and, getting to know them a bit more over two of three hours, they open up about things they haven’t spoken about in years, things they haven’t even told each other about how they feel about each other, things that are personal, or painful – they feel a weight has been taken off after they do the interview.

"It’s an honour for people to tell you those private things. You can’t just parachute into somebody’s life and take their story, you have to do it justice as well."

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The project became a lot more personal for Colm than he had initially intended. Towards the end of the edit, he realised that one of his interviewees had spoken about the marriage gratuity without explaining what it was. To avoid using a voiceover he asked his mother Christine (73) to step in and chat about it on camera.

On the day of filming on the Liffey boardwalk, they ended up talking about Christine's marriage to Colm's late father. It is not revealed in the film, but they had split up when Colm was a baby so he did not meet his father until he was 11, and that meeting was fraught.

"We talked about her terrible experience in the 70s and early 80s living in an abusive marriage, not that I hadn’t known - the family don’t shy away from talking about it but, because I knew it for so long we hadn’t talked about it. For her to talk about it, it was for me... it took me aback a bit. I wasn’t expecting it to be that deep from just a few soundbites I needed to link scenes."

While Colm says he is "allergic" to featuring people he knows in films, he felt his mother's story was a story that needed to be told as it gave a different insight into marriage and relationships during that period in Ireland.

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"It’s not a vanity project for me to put her in," says Colm. "I’d be a very private person myself. I don’t like people knowing my business. This is a very different story of a marriage that didn’t work out."

He adds, "My mother came from a very rural family in west Clare so it very much would have been 'look, make the marriage work'. It was very painful for her. From the State’s point of view there was a certain shame there, the implication that she had failed, even if it was a terrible marriage. That story was important."

Christine's story is one of a handful that reflect a darker side of our history in Under the Clock, but coming directly from people who lived through them they are even more impactful. However, Colm is quick to point out that the overall tone of Under the Clock is an uplifting one.

"It's not all doom and gloom," he says, "This is a feel-good film. Parts of it are emotional and poignant but ultimately it's feel-good."

Under the Clock is showing in selected cinemas for a limited one week run from October 5. Tickets are on sale now. For more information check out the website undertheclockfilm.com

Online Editors