4. EXILE IN HELL - The Story of Irishman - Alexander Pearse

Eight men entered the Tasmanian wilderness, 49 days later the only survivor was the little Irishman. In the early 1800s Sarah Island in Maquarie Harbour, Tasmania, was considered the most notorious and brutal penal colony in the British Empire. In 1822, seven convicts made an escape attempt through terrain that to this day remains unexplored; the men resorted to killing and eating their companions in order to survive. After forty-nine days only one man emerged from the wilderness – an Alexander Pearce, native of Monaghan. In this film, through the use of a series of dramatic reconstructions, director Barrie Dowdall NED KELLY and CONVICT WOMEN explores both the humanity and the depravity of this character, and in doing so brings this dark story to Irish screens for the first time. This documentary is a re-enactment of a gruesome tale: it contains scene some viewers may not find to their taste.