Well, There Goes That Dream
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About
Well, There Goes That Dream is a memorable line said by The Banshees of Inisherin character Dominic (portrayed by Irish actor Barry Keoghan) after getting rejected by his love interest in the movie. Online, a screencap from the scene has been used as a reaction image and caption meme, typically to comment on one failing to achieve their dreams or goals, often humorously.
Origin
On October 21st, 2022, the black tragicomedy film The Banshees of Inisherin premiered.[1] In one scene of the film, the character Dominic (Barry Keoghan) confesses his romantic feelings to the character Siobhán, who rejects his advances in a kind manner. Disheartened, Dominic mutters, "Well, there goes that dream," and walks away (full scene shown below).
Well, there goes that dream. Well, I'd best go over there and do whatever that thing over there I was going to do was.
On December 19th, 2022, X[2] user @christiansbale posted a clip from the scene to X / Twitter, where it received over 8.1 million views, 6,700 reposts and 36,000 likes in two years.
On March 9th, 2023, X[3] user @TheCinesthetic posted quoted an X post that said, "what feelings do men experience," with an uncaptioned screencap from the scene. The post (shown below) garnered over 3,200 reposts and 31,000 likes in two years.
Spread
A caption meme format based on the scene achieved initial virality on X / Twitter and Reddit in mid-March 2023. For example, on March 13th, 2023, Redditor TennisADHD posted an image caption meme based on the format that gained over 23,000 upvotes in the /r/dankmemes[3] subreddit in two years (shown below).
The caption format saw continued use on social media in 2024 and 2025. For example, on January 8th, 2024, X[4] user @alexkealy posted a meme about the movie Saltburn based on a recaptioned version of the meme. The post (shown below) received over 1,000 reposts and 31,000 likes in one year.
On October 20th, 2024, the Facebook[5] page A Shot II posted a two-panel screencap of the scene that garnered over 12,000 reactions and 2,500 shares and has also been used as a caption format.
Various Examples
Templates
Search Interest
External References
[1] IMDb – The Banshees of Inisherin
[2] X – @christiansbale
[3] Reddit – In this economy?
[4] X – @alexkealy
[5] Facebook – A Shot II.
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