Born: ?, Ireland.

Career: 'I worked for a small radio studio in the sixties doing sponsored radio programs. They would be 15 minutes long: music, soaps, quizzes. The studio made about 28 of these sponsored programs, including a soap called 'The Kennedy's of Castleross'. I was 15 years of age when I started working for them; putting on the discs, doing the sound effects on the soaps. The guy who owned it, a guy called Bill Stapleton, was really interested in film, so he bought a film camera and he bought a small place in Bray where he developed a studio. He then went to get work with RTÉ-tv supplying them with facilities and crews. A complete crew was a cameraman, a soundman and an electrician; I was in that first crew that he supplied to RTÉ. I think it was in 1964 or 1965. I worked on farming programs for most of that time; the odd time when farming programs weren't on, during the summer, we would do documentaries.'

Formed 'Emdee Productions' [for tv-prod] with Mike Murphy in 1985. His son Shane [1972-] is a c.asst; his brother Brendan is a sound recordist/mixer.

Awards: LAFCA Award nom [1998] & IFTA Award nom [1999] for 'The General'; IFTA Award nom [2000] for 'When the Sky Falls'; IFTA Award nom [2005] for 'The Mighty Celt'; IFTA Award [2007] for 'The Tiger's Tail'; Rhode Island IFF 'Best Cinematography' [2nd place] [2008] for 'Janey Mary'.

About 'The General': 'I asked my cameraman Seamus Deasy to shoot tests. We experimented with both b&w and color stock which we had the lab print in b&w. We chose the latter option because the b&w stocks available are very limited. We found there is no loss of quality from going from color to b&w. The real challenge for Seamus was to adjust his style of lighting. Like every other modern cameraman he uses soft, indirect lighting bouncing off sheets of polystyrene or Chinese lanterns giving a flattering glow to faces and relying on the graduations of color to separate the various levels and objects. In b&w the planes must be differentiated by shaft of direct light. Objects need black light to rim their contours. It is more complex and time consuming. It is also something of a lost art. Like me, Seamus is old enough to have shot a lot of b&w before color came along and he began to dust off his technique.' [John Boorman]

1976        Circasia/Masquerade [John McColgan & Brian MacLochlainn] 16mm/c; short/39m; cph: Ken Murphy

1977        Poitín/Poteen [Bob Quinn] 16mm/c; 65m; first filmed drama of its length in the Gaelic (Irish) language

1983        The Schooner [Bill Miskelly & Mary Jackson] c; short/58m

1985        The End of the World Man/The Bulldozer Brigade [Bill Miskelly] c

1986        Sometime City [Joe Lee & Frank Deasy] 16mm-35bu/?; short/37m

1986        Budawanny [Bob Quinn] 16mm/b&w-c; 2uc: Joe Comerford

1987        The Courier [Joe Lee & Frank Deasy] c; 2uc; ph: Gabriel Beristáin

1992        Kylie: Live - 'Let's Get to It' Tour [Ian Hamilton] c/V; mus doc/80m; co-c.op

1993        The Bishop's Story [Bob Quinn] 16mm/b&w-c; 2uc: Joe Comerford; re-edited version of 'Budawanny'

1994        An Gobán Saor [Liadh Ní Riada] s16/?; short/52m

1994        Omós don Sulán [Peadar Ó Riada] s16/?; doc/?m

1994        Broken Harvest [Maurice O'Callaghan] b&w-c; ph b&w seq; color ph: Jack Conroy; 2uc: Ivan Meagher

1994        Holding the Baby [Kate Gillen & Bernie Morrison] c; short/24m

1994        The Life of Reilly [Alan Archbold] s16-35bu/c; short/27m

1995        Fishing the Sloe-Black River [Brendan Bourke] scope/c; short/14m

1995        Irish Cinema: Ourselves Alone? [Donald Taylor Black] v/b&w-c; doc/51m

1995        The Boy from Mercury [Martin Duffy] s16-35bu/b&w-c

1996        Angela Mooney [Dies Again] [Tommy McArdle] c; 2uc: Laurence Manly

1996        Southpaw [: The Francis Barrett Story] [Liam McGrath] c; doc/80m; co-addph; ph: Cían De Buitléar; filmed 1996-98;

                    also ep of Channel 4 series 'True Stories' (2001)

1996        Where Do I Begin [David Keating] s16/?; doc/54m

1996        Ceol na talamhan/Song of the Earth [Peter Carr] ?; 13 doc's/30m each & 4 doc's/60m each; cph: Tony Coldwell &

                    Peter Robertson; prod 1996-98

1996        Riverdance [: The New Show] [in New York] [: Live from New York City] [John McColgan] c; mus perf/103m;

                    co-c.op; ph: Ciarán Tanham

1996        I Went Down [Paddy Breathnach] c; 2uc; ph: Cían De Buitléar

1997        The General/I Once Had a Life [John Boorman] p/b&w

1998        Night Train [John Lynch] c

1998        Accelerator [Vinny Murphy] c

1999        The Corrs: Live at Lansdowne Road [Ciarán Tanham & Nick Wickham] c/V; mus doc/87m; co-c.op; ph: Peter

                    Robertson

1999        When the Sky Falls [John Mackenzie] c; 2uc: Sean Corcoran & Peter Robertson

1999        An Everlasting Piece [Barry Levinson] c

2000        Aidan Walsh - Master of the Universe [Shimmy Marcus] v/c; doc/69m; cph: Mick O'Rourke

2000        Not Afraid, Not Afraid [Annette Carducci] c

2001        Crust [Mark Locke] c

2001        Reign of Fire/Where Heroes Go Down [Rob Bowman] p/c; 2uc; ph: Adrian Biddle

2003        Country of My Skull/In My Country [John Boorman] c

2003        Man About Dog [Paddy Breathnach] c; co-addph; ph: Cían De Buitléar

2004        The Mighty Celt [Pearse Elliott] c; 2uc: John T. Davis & Sean Corcoran

2006        The Tiger's Tail [ John Boorman] HD-to-35mm/c

2006        Summer of the Flying Saucer [Martin Duffy] c

2007        Janey Mary [Paul Brady] b&w; short/20m

2007        A Film with Me in It [Ian Fitzgibbon] HD-to-35mm/c

2008        Triage [Danis Tanovic] c

1983        Atlantean [Bob Quinn] 3-part doc series; cph: Sean Corcoran, Thaddeus O'Sullivan, Joe Comerford & Nick O'Neill

1991        [The Director's Place:] I Dreamt I Woke Up [John Boorman] doc/44m/16mm

1994        A River of Sound [Philip King] 7-part doc series (1995)

1994        Picture Windows [: Language of the Heart] [ep 'Two Nudes Bathing' dir by John Boorman] 6-part miniseries; other

                    ph: Miroslaw Baszak, Paul Sarossy & Jamie Anderson

1998        The Ambassador [6 ep dir by various] 13-part series, 1998-99; other ph: Simon Kossoff

1998        George Thomson: Eighty Years A-Growing [Gerry Gregg] doc/52m

1999        DDU [- District Detective Unit] [ep dir by A.J. Quinn] 4-part series; other ph: Cedric Culliton

1999        Monarch of the Glen [ep #5-8 dir by A.J. Quinn] 63-part (+ 1 special) series, 2000-05; 1st season, 2000; other ph: John

                    Hooper (4 ep dir by Edward Bennett)

2000        McCready and Daughter [A.J. Quinn] pilot; followed by 6-part series, 2001

2000        Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor [Mikael Salomon] tvm

2000        Act Without Words I [Karel Reisz] c; short/16m; ep 19-part series 'Beckett on Film'

2000        Catastrophe [David Mamet] c; short/6m; ep 19-part series 'Beckett on Film'

2000        Come and Go [John Crowley] c; short/8m; ep 19-part series 'Beckett on Film'

2000        Footfalls [Walter Asmus] c; short/27m; ep 19-part series 'Beckett on Film'

2000        That Time [Charles Garrad] c; short/20m; ep 19-part series 'Beckett on Film'

2000        Waiting for Godot [Michael Lindsay-Hogg] c; cph: Rob Goldie; ep 19-part series 'Beckett on Film'

2001        The Seventh Stream [John Gray] tvm

2003        Dracula's Bram Stoker [Sinead O'Brien] doc/52m/v; cph: Sean Corcoran

2004        The Grid [Mikael Salomon] 6-part miniseries; cph: Jon Joffin