Eamon Ryan is ready for his close-up, Mr DeMille.
The former Green Party leader is the subject of a new documentary, Forever Is Now, documenting his final 18 months in office.
With behind-the-scenes access to Ryan attempting to negotiate major agreements at COP28 in Baku and speaking to John Kerry on the sidelines of the United Nations’ climate summit in 2023, the documentary shows the nuance and compromise required in brokering major international climate agreements.
For fans of process-heavy political dramas such as The West Wing or Borgen, being a fly on the wall of major political dealings makes this documentary an engaging watch.
Then, there is the other half of the documentary: the very human, personal side of Eamon Ryan.
The documentary doesn’t pull punches; if you think being a politician is hard, try being related to one.
Ryan’s son, Tommy, is on the autism spectrum, and in the documentary’s more contemplative moments, it shows the realities of parenting a child on the autism spectrum.
The documentary reveals that Ryan was always in “minister” mode when he got home, and that translated to his head still being in politics mode when he needed to be in family mode; that was a major part of his decision to step down as Green leader in the summer of 2024 and not seek re-election in the 2024 general election.
Released in Irish cinemas on October 16 (and, per director Neasa Ní Chianáin, will not be shown on RTÉ), the documentary reveals the very real human toll of politics.
A former Green Party leader and Minister in two different Cabinets, Ryan was used to having a security guard and a team of advisers around him at all times; he said that after a certain while, he got used to having a camera crew trained on him all the time, too.
When we speak to Ryan and director Ní Chianáin on October 4, Ryan reveals that a weekend sea swim saw temperatures of 20 degrees Celsius; the day of the interview itself was an unseasonable 18 degrees.
Ryan isn’t the kind of politician to say “I told you so,” but the second-driest September on record and the driest summer in over 30 years may have vindicated his beliefs.
And what of his beliefs? To his critics on the right, Ryan is the second coming of Chairman Mao, a man who wants to hand over farms to the state and force a radical climate agenda on the average Irish farmer.
To his critics on the left, the Greens’ various stints in government have only resulted in modest, incremental changes that are immediately undone the instant they are voted out of office.
Ryan reveals he is from a Fine Gael family, but the documentary also shows his past protests against America not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol and his claim that he relates to the plight of immigrants trying to find employment in a foreign country.
The former Dublin Bay South TD said that he was not interested in what he calls “divisive” politics.
Forever Is Now puts a spotlight on the intense media scrutiny the Greens faced during their most recent stint in government with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
The documentary reveals how Twitter and Facebook, in particular, became the main engines of ire against the Greens.
In the last government, the Greens controlled the Communications brief, and Ryan was asked whether the Greens could have done more to ensure a level playing field on social media (recent research by this publication has shown a clear conservative, populist bias on Facebook and an outright right-wing bias on Twitter).
Ryan recalled meeting Mark Zuckerberg in 2018 and recalled a member of the Facebook board speaking before the Oireachtas committee on media during the 32nd Dáil.
On both occasions, Ryan was told that Facebook was interested in combating misinformation on climate change, but he noted that Facebook firmly changed their agenda once Trump took office again in early 2025.
“I was certainly never swayed by the argument ‘oh, we should go easy on these companies because they pay our corporate tax’; it’s actually the opposite: to be successful as a digital centre you need to have good standards and be the best place to regulate it.”
Ryan stated, “we have given social media companies far too much leeway.”
Ryan was first elected to office in 1999, when he won a seat in Rathmines in that year’s Dublin City Council elections; he became a TD in 2002 in Dublin Bay South and, barring a 5-year absence between 2011 and 2016, was a TD for the constituency for over 20 years.
He said there was a noticeable change in how politics is conducted compared to when he first started out in politics and when he eventually retired.
“At the moment, it is a very harsh environment online, and it is unrelenting; when I started out, the news cycle wasn’t 24/7. There were certain breaks. What makes it difficult today is that it is slightly addictive for politicians and there are no days off.”
Ryan mused, “Jesus, think about the 1970s, we had the gun in Irish politics; if you look at the 1980s, there was fairly nasty politics; there wasn’t any love lost in that Garrett versus Charlie row, and yet somehow it was easier.”
“It’s not just that you’re subject to abuse, but the other thing is the addictive nature of politics. You come home, and your head is still in politics mode. We give out about our kids being addicted to phones, but I put my hands up, I was just as bad!”
Despite the abuse aimed at politicians, Ryan said it was “so important” that people still put themselves forward for office, saying that no matter the result, the very act of running for office is “honourable.”
“There is nothing like representing your own community; it changes your perspective to ‘they should do something’, to ‘we should do something ‘”.
“Whether you’re Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Sinn Féin, it doesn’t matter in my mind. You are elected by your community, and there is nothing as good as that,” he said.
Ryan and his son Tommy are the focus of the documentary
For Ní Chianáin, she said it was a conscious decision to mix the more high-octane, major international summit scenes with more domestic, quieter scenes with Ryan and his family and staff.
“It can’t just be all talk talk talk talk,” she relayed, and said that it was important that the audience got a breather in between all the political jargon being thrown at them.
“I knew how important nature was to Tommy (Ryan’s son) and how Eamon spends all of his free time in nature, so I wanted to capture that,” she explained.
Ní Chianáin said she was mindful that the film couldn’t be all acronyms or international climate agreements, or else the audience would tune out.
“We took a pause and got to know Edel (Hackett, Ryan’s former communications adviser), and Eamon, and we realised that communications is a major issue when it comes to climate.”
Every good political documentary worth its salt has one scene that makes you wince or reveals an Office UK-style level of cringe comedy; Forever Is Now has one such scene.
The scene in question depicts Ryan writing his leader’s speech at the party’s convention in 2024, and an adviser says that the word “biodiversity” should be cut from the leader’s speech as it doesn’t cut through with the average voter.
The documentary also reveals how Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary made the Greens the target of his ire during the last government.
O’Leary, who launched Fine Gael TD Peter Burke’s re-election campaign in November 2024, is shown in the documentary instigating social media pile-ons on the Greens.
Ní Chianáin said it was important to show the abuse the Greens received online.
“Lots of people have lost faith in mainstream media and institutions; they are really happy silo’d off in their echo chambers and bubbles,” she said, and added she was “shocked” at the abuse that Ryan received online.
“It was really frightening to see how he was being portrayed, and I thought it was an important narrative to shine a light on; people on social media are being manipulated in a particular way.”
As the interview wrapped up, Ní Chianáin expressed annoyance that the documentary will be aired on Belgian state television, but RTÉ are not broadcasting it.
“If you want to see this film, you have to see it in the cinema,” she said.
Forever Is Now is now playing in selected cinemas across Dublin. Check your local cinema for listings.