Cinematic shorts, cast in Irish.
IrishLads is the creator-first animation studio for queer indie filmmakers. Design a lad with a Galway lilt, drop him into a scenario, pick a stylised look — and ship a 4K short before tea.
8 min
Render
5
Accent regions
∞
Recasts
FeaturedVelvet Disco, 1987
Two rival synth frontmen are forced into a duet under the disco ball.
Salt Memory
7:41 · 4.1K views
The 23:42 to Dingle
/ method
Four steps. One short.
We rebuilt the indie animation pipeline so a single creator can do the work of a five-person studio. No frame-by-frame keying, no rotoscope rigs.
Cast a persistent lad
Design a character once — accent, build, voice, signature look — and reuse him across an entire universe of shorts.
Pick a scenario
Start from a romance, noir, mythic or slice-of-life template — or drop in your own freeform prompt.
Choose the look
Six hand-tuned visual styles, from Emerald Watercolour to Neon Celtic Noir. Every frame is animated, never live-action.
Render & ship
We compose, score and master a cinematic short. Export a 4K MP4, vertical Reel and stills in one click.
/ vs. the rest
The picks-and-shovels for queer indie creators.
Runway is for ad agencies. NovelAI writes. Civitai hosts. Nobody else is building a vertical studio for queer creators who actually need to ship — and stay on the App Store while they do it.
/ visual styles
Six house looks. All animated.
freeEmerald Watercolour
Hand-painted melancholy with stained-glass light.
Palette
Mossy green · ember orange · slate grey · pearl ivory
creatorNeon Celtic Noir
Cyberpunk Dublin after midnight.
Palette
Cobalt blue · hot magenta · acid lime · ink black
creatorStorybook Vellum
An illuminated manuscript come to life.
Palette
Antique gold · sage · oxblood · candle white
freeCliffside Cel
Studio-grade animation in the spirit of Cartoon Saloon.
Palette
Sea-foam · sandstone · sunset coral · indigo dusk
studioVelvet Stage
Painterly portrait realism with theatrical lighting.
Palette
Burgundy · amber · cream · charcoal
creatorRetro VHS Cassette
80s grain, halos and chromatic bleed.
Palette
Hot pink · turquoise · sodium-vapour yellow · VHS blue
/ character bible
Lads with history.
Every character keeps his face, voice and quirks across an entire universe of shorts. Galway fishermen don't suddenly turn up speaking Belfast.
CorkDonal O'Briain
Lighthouse keeper. Stubborn. Aches for ferry days that never come.
DublinCiaran Walsh
Indie barrister turned folk musician. Pours pints between courtrooms.
GalwayFionn Cassidy
Inishmore fisherman. Believes the sea remembers more than men do.
KerryCillian Tighe
Hurling captain. Pre-match jitters and a confession in his pocket.
BelfastRory Mac An Bhaird
Belfast PI. Smokes too much, trusts too little, falls hard once.
CorkSean Doolan
Synth-pop frontman in eyeliner and an attitude problem.
DublinEoin Hannigan
Dublin coffee runner who jots poetry on receipt paper.
CorkPadraig Ní Bhriain
Stage-veteran character actor with a thunderous laugh.
/ scenarios
Story scaffolding.
Romance, drama, noir, mythic. Use a template as a starting frame or write a freeform prompt — IrishLads handles pacing, shot list and dialogue.
The Lighthouse Keeper's Letter
A reclusive Cork lighthouse keeper finds a sea-battered love letter and tracks down the man who wrote it forty years ago.
Aching nostalgia, sea-salt warmth, slow-burn
Late Trains to Dingle
Two strangers share a delayed night train across the country and decide what comes next at dawn.
Witty, rain-slick, intimate
The Selkie of Inishmore
A grieving fisherman from the Aran Islands rescues a mysterious stranger from the surf — a stranger who insists they have met before.
Mythic, melancholy, oceanic
Match Day at McSorley's
A small-town hurling captain has one hour before kick-off to tell his best friend the truth.
Pre-match nerves, sweaty pints, tender courage
Saturday Night at the Synth Disco
Two lads from rival 80s synth bands collide on stage in a glittering Cork club.
Glittery, cheeky, neon-soaked
The Galway Detective
A whiskey-soaked private eye chases a stolen heirloom through the Galway lanes — and his ex-fiancé.
Velvet shadows, smoke, slow heat
/ now showing
Films from the community.
Velvet Disco, 1987
Two rival synth frontmen are forced into a duet under the disco ball.
Light Across the Cove
A Cork lighthouse keeper crosses three counties to deliver a forty-year-old love letter.
The 23:42 to Dingle
Ciaran misses the last train and ends up on the night service with the wrong man — or, possibly, the right one.
The Galway Claddagh
A Belfast PI takes a job from the man who left him at the altar.
Salt Memory
Inishmore. A grieving fisherman pulls a stranger from the surf who knows his late husband's nickname.
A Flat White Sunday
A coffee runner and a tech lead share a soggy bench and a confused terrier.
/ pricing
Priced for working creators.
Between mainstream streaming ($9.99) and niche creator platforms ($19.99). Built so a small indie studio can self-fund a season.
Open Reel
Tier
- ✓1 persistent character
- ✓3 minutes of rendered footage / month
- ✓2 free visual styles
- ✓Watermarked exports
Creator
Tier
- ✓Unlimited characters & films
- ✓60 minutes rendered / month
- ✓All visual styles
- ✓Vertical Reels + 4K exports
- ✓Commercial licence
Studio
Tier
- ✓Team seats (up to 5)
- ✓180 minutes rendered / month
- ✓Custom voice training
- ✓Priority render queue
- ✓API access & webhooks
/ the audience
Built for the underserved.
Gay men 18–45 in the US, UK, Ireland, Canada and Australia spend on niche entertainment but get generic AI tools. IrishLads is the first platform shaped around their tastes — and the Irish accent that, frankly, sells.
78 M+
Gay men online, US/UK/IE/AU
2.2 K
Creator subscribers, Year 1 plan
45 K
Target subscribers, Year 3
$15
Creator tier · between Netflix & Patreon
< 8 min
Average render time per short
24
Story templates at launch
/ open casting
Make the short the mainstream wouldn't.
Sign up free, cast your first lad and ship a short before the kettle's cool. Two clicks, no credit card, full export.
No card · 3 minutes of render · all six visual styles in preview