Jun 24 2006

The Wind That Shakes the Barley

Published by Fence under Moving Pictures

Dir: Ken Loach
Writ: Paul Laverty

  • Cillian Murphy - Damien
  • Pádraic Delaney - Teddy
  • Liam Cunningham - Dan
  • Orla Fitzgerald - Sinead
  • Myles Horgan - Rory

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Opening with a hurling scene in Cork in the 1920’s this film lives entirely within the experience of the main character, Damien. A young doctor about to leave Ireland for a career in London he is pulled into the Irish War of Independence. And this film is about his fight. The film starts without any introductory text, there is no attempt made to make the viewer aware of the wider world, this is Damien’s story and only his story.

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Tags: 10 Stars, 1920s, brother against brother, C20th, Cillian Murphy, death, historical fiction, Ireland - civil war, Ireland - war of independence, irish history, Ken Loach, Liam Cunningham, Myles Horgan, Orla Fitzgerald, Paul Laverty, Pádraic Delaney, The Wind That Shakes The Barley, torture

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Oct 20 2005

Mouth of Flowers

Published by Fence under Irishify

Sun the 16th of Oct was the 115th anniversary of the birth of Michael Collins. And marking this date was the first ever meeting of the Collins 22 Society, which as Enda Kenny said aims to “have the man honoured”. And a fine aim that is, after all Collins is one of Ireland’s heroes.[1]

Collins was involved in the 1916 Rising,[2] but in a minor role. It was with the war for independence that Collins came to the fore.

the dominant military figure was Collins, who also served as adjutant general, director of intelligence and president of the IRB. A young Corkman who had risen to prominence after the Easter Rising, Collins was a sturdy, powerful-looking man of keen intelligence and inexhaustible energy.


Of course the Northern Ireland “Troubles” has meant that for years anything seen as overly promoting or remembering Ireland’s nationalist past has been seen in as pro-IRA. And while the success of the Irish football team has lessoned the whole IRA/republican association with the tricolour, the associations between history and the past are often too close. Plus, Sinn Féin and the IRA have done very well out of Ireland’s 700 year struggle for freedom, as though there was one continuous line running down through history culminating in them.

And because Collins was a military leader, an organiser of guerilla warfare, to celebrate him has been seen as a celebration of death and bloodshed. Of violence, and of republicanism in its most negative form.
But Collins signed The Treaty. This means he is not such a Big Damn Hero to the IRA as this was a betrayal of the republic, of freedom. And then he went and got himself killed in an ambush in the Civil War. Meaning that ultimately, Dev and his side were responsible and so Fianna Fail could never really embrace Collins as a hero.

But recently he has made a comeback[3] First we had the Liam Neeson film which, despite Julia Robert’s accent, was good. And now this Collins 22 Society. So why is it that I’m thinking this is more of a PR exercise for Fine Gael rather than anything else? A cynical ploy to use a past leader, known for inspiring people, to associate Michael Collins with their party because they have no one worth calling a leader?

Me, cynical? Never.

Linknotes:
  1. I’ve always been a Collins girl. No Dev or anti-treaty arguments for me ↩
  2. you know, the one that ended up promoting Sinn Féin into the limelight, despite the fact that they had nothing to do with it? ↩
  3. what was that t-shirt slogan “Collins and Keane. Two great Cork rebels shot in the back? ↩
Tags: cynical, death, Fine Gael, Ireland - civil war, Ireland - war of independence, irish history, Irish politics, Michael Collins, The Treaty, War

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