Watch this brilliant Irish Western thriller streaming for free now

The first major film to be set during the Famine, JOE recently spoke to one of its stars.

Available to watch on the service Plex, the movie is set in 1847 and follows Irish soldier Feeney (James Frecheville, The Drop).

Black '47

He returns home from fighting for the British Army in Afghanistan and India to find his country ravaged by the Famine. Many of his own family are among the dead.

Outraged by the injustices he sees perpetrated by rent collectors, law enforcement and English landowners, Feeney seeks vengeance.

The British authorities then send Hannah (Hugo Weaving, Slow Horses), a Royal Irish Constabulary investigator who served with Feeney in the army, to apprehend him.

Watch the trailer for Black '47 right here:

The first major film to be set during the Famine, Black '47 boasts a tense cat-and-mouse story and hard-hitting action, while never shying away from the real-life historical horrors.

As such, the end result is a long-overdue, worthy cinematic telling of an awful part of Irish history, and also a gripping Western.

The film's ensemble cast is incredible too. It includes Barry Keoghan, Freddie Fox, Jim Broadbent, Moe Dunford, Sarah Greene and Stephen Rea.

JOE recently spoke to Fox about his musical show High Society, which is coming to the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre next month. You can read about that here.

Barry Keoghan, Freddie Fox, and Hugo Weaving in Black '47

During the conversation, we asked the British actor about his experiences making Black '47, noting that it's become a totemic Irish movie.

He responded: "Yeah, it's so lovely to hear that coming here, that it's been embraced in that way. Because, of course, like so many ignorant Brits, I didn't know very much about the Famine before I read the script.

"And the way that [director Lance Daly] and the writers dealt with it as a Western to kind of allow audiences from around the world into that history, I thought was very, very clever.

"The fact that I was able to develop a personal friendship and relationship with people I've looked up to my whole life, like Stephen Rea and Hugo Weaving and Jim Broadbent, and have a moment early in Barry Keoghan's career and to have become friends on that is... You look back at those moments, and you think how lucky I was.

"They do shape you as a person. Because... when you're working with Hugo Weaving, and I've since come and seen him in plays at the Gate in Ireland and I've seen him in the plays at the National, I go: 'I've got someone to reach for, some standard to aspire to'."

He later added: "I think we all felt when we were making Black '47 that we were lucky to be involved in telling something that was so personal to the Irish people. I'm just very glad that it's been embraced in the way that it has."

Black '47 is currently streaming on the service Plex for free.

High Society will be performed at Dublin's Bord Gáis Energy Theatre from Tuesday 21 to Saturday 24 October 2026. Tickets priced from €29.80 are on sale now through Ticketmaster.