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The Barrytown Trilogy is an Irish comedy-drama media franchise centered on the Rabbittes, a working-class family from Barrytown, Dublin. It began in 1988 when Beacon Pictures and 20th Century Fox bought the rights to the 1987 novel The Commitments by Roddy Doyle shortly after it was published. The book was successful, as was Alan Parker's 1991 film adaptation. The film received cult status and is regarded as one of the best Irish films ever made. In 1999, the British Film Institute ranked the film at number 38 on its list of the "100 best British films of the century", based on votes from 1,000 leading figures of the film industry. A sequel novel, The Snapper, was published in 1990, followed by a film adaptation in 1993. A third novel, The Van, was published and shortlisted for the 1991 Booker Prize, followed by a film adaptation in 1996.
Jimmy Rabbitte, just a thick-ya out of school, gets a brilliant idea: to put a soul band together in Barrytown, his slum home in north Dublin. First he needs musicians and singers: things slowly start to click when he finds three fine-voiced females virtually in his back yard, a lead singer (Deco) at a wedding, and, responding to his ad, an aging trumpet player, Joey "The Lips" Fagan.
Sharon Curley is a 20-year-old living with her parents and many brothers and sisters in Dublin. When she gets pregnant and refuses to name the father, she becomes the talk of the town.
In a working-class quarter of Dublin, 'Bimbo' Reeves gets laid off from his job and, with his redundancy payout, buys a van and sells fish and chips with his buddy, Larry. Due to Ireland's surprising success at the 1990 FIFA World Cup, their business starts off well, but the relationship between the two friends soon becomes strained as Bimbo behaves more like a typical boss.