Screening Ulster: Cinema and the Unionists 3031234359, 9783031234354

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Screening Ulster Cinema and the Unionists Richard Gallagher

Screening Ulster

Richard Gallagher

Screening Ulster Cinema and the Unionists

Richard Gallagher Co. Donegal, Ireland

ISBN 978-3-031-23435-4    ISBN 978-3-031-23436-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23436-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

I started this project, which started out as doctoral research, with someone who is not here anymore and ended it with two people who are here and were not at the beginning. It is these people that I would like to acknowledge first and foremost. My father, Daniel Gallagher, will forever have a huge influence on my life, whereas my sons, Daniel and Tadhg, made what would have been one of the worst times of my life (the COVID years) one of the best. It is also my father that this book is dedicated and I took great joy in writing, albeit briefly, about his favourite film, The Quiet Man. This book could not have been completed without the help of many others. My fiancé, Anna Duffy, has always been there to pick me up. My mother, Elva Gallagher, has been a rock throughout my entire life and was no different as I carried out this research. My PhD supervisors, Professor Cahal McLaughlin, Dr. Sian Barber and Professor Dominic Bryan (in fact, the whole Bryan family deserve a mention) have been crucial throughout this period, and I am so glad I was able to choose such knowledgeable, kind and helpful people to aid my PhD journey. I would also like to thank my fantastic examiners that saw me over the line, Dr. Des O’Rawe and Dr. Stephen Baker. I must also say thanks to some other people who have helped me track down some of the films included in the study or have generally offered valuable advice: Professor John Brewer, Tim Loane, Dr. Laurence McKeown, Lucy Baxter, Dr. Jennie Carlsten, Dr Gordon Gillespie and Martin Lynch. Compiling a comprehensive list of films that depict unionist characters was also made easier by consulting previous lists of films about the conflict. These lists were created by the CAIN database, Brian McIlroy, Kevin Rockett and John Hill and I also wish to thank them v

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

for providing these valuable resources to the public. I must also thank Queen’s University Belfast’s The Institute of Irish Studies, under the guardianship of Professor Peter Gray, for creating such a welcoming and informative environment to learn about Ireland. I will also be forever grateful to Dr. Markus Schleich for letting me share an office with him!

Contents

1 Introduction  1 2 An Emergence of Unionist Representation in British Cinema 21 3 The  Rural and the Repressed: Unionists in December Bride (1991) and This Is the Sea (1997) 53 4 Paramilitaries  Begin to Dominate Representations of Unionists 67 5 The ‘Troubles Comedy’ and Unionism101 6 Unionist  Screws: Prison Officers in H3 (2001), Silent Grace (2004) and Hunger (2008)119 7 The Kids Are Alright: Adolescent Unionism135 8 The End of ‘Troubles Cinema’?157 9 Conclusion177 Index185 vii

About the Author

Richard  Gallagher  is from Donegal, Ireland and was awarded a PhD from Queen’s University Belfast in 2021. His research focuses on media studies and British and Irish cinema. He has published an article in a special edition of Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media titled “The Troubles Crime Thriller and the Future of Films about Northern Ireland”. A forthcoming article titled “Unionist Screws: Analysing a Primary Approach to Depicting Northern Irish Unionists in British and Irish Cinema” will be published in a future edition of the  Journal of British Cinema and Television

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

The unionist community in Northern Ireland’s treatment in commercial narrative cinema has been a topic of discussion for many decades now without a focused and comprehensive study into the issue being produced. The prevailing thought has been that the community has largely been either ignored or maligned, particularly in comparison to their nationalist counterparts, and that they have never really been given much thought by filmmakers. Some have even argued that this cinematic deficit is reflective of how the community is treated by the media in general. This book seeks to address this issue by providing a detailed analysis of unionist representation in cinema over the last 40 years. The objectives will be to determine the validity of such claims and to offer explanations where possible. However, the complexity of the Northern Irish unionist identity cannot be overstated, and it may therefore be necessary to start this study into the community’s cinematic representation by attempting to unpack this identity and its many fractures and contradictions. Northern Irish unionists are primarily of Protestant faith and in a political sense, whilst wishing to maintain the union between Britain and Northern Ireland, generally profess loyalty to the monarchy, support the existence of the Northern Irish state and assert that its position within the United Kingdom has been to the state’s benefit. At the core of the Northern Irish unionist identity is an imbricated British identity—an identity that, unlike unionism, has been well catered for by cinema and a proper assessment of the unionist community’s representation in film is particularly difficult as a result. The © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Gallagher, Screening Ulster, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23436-1_1

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British identity itself is also characterised by its difficulty to define; it merges four nations into one, is constantly being negotiated and has historically needed to be flexible to incorporate empire. When overlapping versions of the Northern Irish unionist identity such as loyalist (a term usually used to define working-class unionists), Protestant (as both an ethno-communal designation and indicator of religious belief) and Irish (both Northern Irish and Irish in a general sense) are factored in, the complexity becomes even greater and significant tensions arise. This complexity is in part owing to an identity crisis caused by the formation of the Northern Irish state in 1921. The island of Ireland was partitioned into two states following the 1920 Government of Ireland Act. One, a state which would eventually become known as the Republic of Ireland, predominantly Catholic and made up of Irish nationalists who sought independence from Britain and the other, Northern Ireland, predominantly Protestant and made up of unionists who wished to maintain the union with Britain. Despite this new state being crucial to their new sense of identity, generally seeing themselves as either British-Irish or Ulster-Scot, like nationalists, unionists had not an established affiliation to the new state; even Ulster as a province was not represented by the new Northern Ireland state as three of the nine counties in the province lay beyond the state’s boundaries and in the Republic of Ireland. Alex Kane, a prominent unionist, explains that: [U]nionists didn’t want partition, they didn’t want the break up of Ireland, they didn’t want the break up of Ulster ending up with the six counties. Because we lost the union between Britain and Ireland, because we were contained to six counties and a majority that we knew would not be stabilised at 30%, and because we thought things would grow against us, unionism became paranoid. It became insular and afraid of everyone. (Spencer 2006)

This identity crisis is best exemplified by understanding the nature of the Orange Order, an international Protestant masonic-style fraternity order founded in County Armagh in 1795. The institution itself is perhaps universally accepted to be synonymous with Northern Irish unionism, yet, given as the organisation pre-dates partition, something of a paradox exists as it continues to operate in Ireland on an all-Ireland basis and is headed by the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland.

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This complexity that has come to characterise Northern Irish unionism is found to be largely absent in cinema. Therefore, this research looks for this complexity but finds that representations offer a much narrower definition of the unionist identity that rarely escapes a polarised relationship with Irish nationalism, the term given to the predominantly Catholic, ethno-nationalist group in Ireland who support some sort of independence from Britain and who are the majority in Ireland. In further contrast to unionists, Irish nationalists also tend to assert that Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom has been to the detriment of Irish interests, to support a united Ireland and oppose the existence of the Northern Irish state. Irish nationalism, or at least a soft nationalist perspective, has dominated the landscape of cinema about Northern Ireland with the majority of characters depicted coming from this background, and this appears to have happened at the expense of portrayals of unionists. This is an understanding supported by much of the previous writing on the subject; referring to the religion that most unionists subscribe to, John Hill defines Protestants in Northern Ireland as “a group conspicuously absent from most films about Ireland” (Hill 1987: 191). One of the only self-­identifying unionists to have been significantly involved in filmmaking in Northern Ireland—a revealing fact in itself—is the writer Gary Mitchell who explains, “If you judged Northern Ireland purely on the basis of films you would think there are no Protestants here” (McKittrick 2008). Brian McIlroy is another who, referring to depictions of unionism generally being insufficient as a result of this absence, finds that “one must look hard for a likeable or sympathetic Protestant character in films dealing with Northern Ireland; in fact, one rarely discovers a well-rounded protagonist or antagonist” (McIlroy 2006: 87). Writing in 2019, Ruth Barton also argues that in the current political landscape the loyalist perspective should be “treated with greater complexity than has previously been the case” (Barton 2019: 143). Given that the dominant form of British identity is understandably the identity most people around the world will associate with the British identifying Northern Irish unionists, it could be expected that the community would be similarly depicted in cinema to how British people are generally. However, typical depictions of Britishness are found not to apply to the Northern Irish unionist community. What this research has detected is that in actuality unionists are often ignored or even presented in opposition to that dominant form. In all the representations of unionism that

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exist, you might also expect to see some sympathy towards the existing status quo, particularly given the general idea—promoted in other forms of media—that republican paramilitaries are terrorists, yet none of these types of portrayals appear with any substance. This is also particularly interesting in the context of the conflict in and about Northern Ireland, commonly referred to as the Troubles, which lasted from the late 1960s to the 1990s and has been the dominant theme throughout almost all of the films about Northern Ireland. One might expect the unionist narrative of British people under attack and fighting a benevolent force to be met with the same sort of appreciation in cinema as when people from mainland Britain have historically found themselves in similar situations. However, this narrative concerning Northern Irish unionism has never been validated in either British cinema or cinema in general; for example, no ‘Troubles film’ has ever presented Northern Irish unionists in the way British people have been presented in films such as Zulu (Endfield, 1964) and Dunkirk (Nolan, 2017). It is this phenomenon that this research will seek to explain. Their maligned status in cinema has not gone unnoticed by unionists themselves. In fact, their lack of cultural and political representation in the media is a common grievance. In this way, an interesting parallel can be drawn between unionism and deprived minority communities elsewhere in the world. However, important differences include the fact that unionists once enjoyed relative power and privilege. Theirs is also an identity that attempts to link with the master narrative of the state and whose culture and historical narratives are prioritised in other arenas specifically in public spaces. Unionism also once assumed superiority over others and other ethno-nationalist groups, in particular, Catholic nationalists who were discriminated against for decades in the unionist-dominated Northern Ireland state. The lens through which they now look at issues of equality is often considered skewed as a result. Typical debates surrounding Third Cinema also cannot quite be moulded to fit in the context of Northern Irish unionism.1 Stephen Baker explains, “For many, the idea of loyalism’s association with Third Cinema or a ‘poor Celtic cinema’ will seem incongruous given its historical defence of monarchy and imperial power” (Baker 2015: 96). Unionist political power over nationalists can be seen to gradually deteriorate in the years after the Troubles started, as did the 1  An introduction to Third Cinema is provided by Mike Wayne in Political film: the dialectics of third cinema (London: Pluto Press, 2001).

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British Empire which provided Protestants in Belfast relatively prosperous careers in shipbuilding, once the material expression of pro-union Protestant power, influence and prestige. This makes unionism somewhat distinct and as Baker explains, “its attempts to appropriate the language of the oppressed have been treated with incredulity and have, at times, looked absurd” (Ibid.). A cruel irony, regarding the lack of unionist representation in fiction film, is that the Belfast shipyards where shipbuilding once took place is now a post-industrial hub for Northern Ireland’s fledgling film industry and home to production facilities for HBO, an American film and television production company. Unionism’s inability to adopt Third Cinema principles to better the community’s cinematic representation is an example of how the inability to adopt models perceived to be left-wing or progressive is endemic within unionism more generally. This is particularly noticeable when looking at working-class unionists as class-consciousness has always been stifled, and continues to be, in one way or another. It is hoped that this study will show how this problem contributes to the community’s external representation in popular cultural forms, with a focus here obviously being on commercial fiction films. However, it can be said that representations have not all been positive for Irish nationalists and that the absence of unionist characters has also been a cause for concern to nationalists. Martin McLoone suggests that several false assumptions are often made; one of which is that although nationalism is generally viewed as being treated more favourably than unionism “just because you’re up there on the big screen doesn’t mean that you are being shown in a favourable light or that your politics emerge with supreme clarity” (McLoone 2008: 196). Furthermore, he claims that although cinema might appear to serve well the ideological position of Irish nationalism, this should not imply that people from the Irish nationalist community do not take issue with representations of the Troubles as well. He explains that the absence of unionism, and especially of loyalist paramilitaries, has cemented the impression that republicans alone have been to blame for the violence and at the same time it has exonerated unionism, loyalism and the British from any culpability (McLoone 2006: 157). Although the majority of killings during the Troubles were committed by republican paramilitaries, a significant number were also carried out by loyalist paramilitaries, and McLoone argues that the cinematic deficit causes yet another failure in regard to presenting a comprehensive picture

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of the conflict.2 This grievance at filmic representations can also be understood to be more in keeping with how nationalists view the media in general as there is traditionally scepticism within nationalism towards the media, specifically the news media, due to the perception that it is in some way pro-British and that it downplays loyalist violence and particularly collusion with security services. Furthermore, Hill identifies a general failure in films, specifically British films, to place violence in a social and political context that might explain it. In this way, he can also be seen to identify perhaps less a bias in favour of Irish republicanism than initially was understood as the implication is that a justification for republican violence is seemingly not as apparent in these films as it could be were the likes of nationalist discrimination and state violence and collusion accounted for appropriately. If working-class unionism’s inability to meaningfully challenge the unionist status quo has been obvious, this is not to say that unionism is wholly incapable of rebellion. In fact, a specific characteristic of unionism that is noticeably omitted to a large degree in cinema thus far has been the resistant nature of unionism regarding its relationship with the British establishment. In reality, rarely has unionism been obedient or servile to British governments with unionism instead seeing itself as an integral part of the United Kingdom and often engaging in Anglophobia, protest, civil disobedience and even terrorism to challenge decisions made in Westminster. Key tensions exist within unionism owing to this contradictory relationship with the British state and understanding how loyalist paramilitaries function in relation to the state can identify a further example of this. Cahal McLaughlin explains, “Their loyalty has always been conditional. They have links with the British military and intelligence sources in a joint battle against republicanism […] and yet they are also subject to assassination and imprisonment by that state, if they are caught or if it is expedient” (McLaughlin 2004: 242). James McAuley also explains how loyalism has proved such an enigma in this regard when he states: For many observers, their pledge of loyalty to the British state is at best an unrequited love affair, while the paradox of those asserting to be its most 2  According to Malcolm Sutton, who undertook extensive research into killings during the Troubles, republican paramilitary groups are responsible for 2,058 deaths whilst loyalist paramilitary groups are responsible for 1,027 (Sutton 2002).

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devoted citizens directly challenging the statute, imperative and representatives of the same state remains all but incomprehensible. But conflicts between loyalists and the state are long-standing and have manifested throughout the history of Northern Ireland. Indeed, it is possible to argue that it was loyalist resistance and defiance that gave rise to the existence of Northern Ireland and contributed directly to the framing of its politics for the next fifty years. It remains central to its future political direction. (McAuley 2016: 1)

Furthermore, although unionists are proud to identify as British and loyal to the British monarchy, they can also be characterised as deeply distrustful of those in mainland Britain and resentful of any notion that those in Scotland, Wales and particularly England have a monopoly on what it means to be British. Gillian McIntosh even argues that anti-Englishness is shown in the stereotypes rehearsed in unionist culture and literature in the first half of the twentieth century to be a general feature of unionism’s complex relationship with Britain (McIntosh 1999: 70). Unionists argued for their separateness and were critical of both the southern and British states; the work was also elitist, professedly loyal to the crown and empire, and at times openly Anglophobic (McIntosh 1999: 3). Following more contemporary cultural examples and in keeping with how representations have tended to steer clear of complexity, this oppositional element is largely ignored in cinema in favour of unionists being depicted as a more subservient people. Despite loyalist paramilitaries dominating cinematic depictions of unionists and therefore violent resistance being implicit, the antagonistic nature of loyalist paramilitaries is also curtailed significantly by cinema’s preoccupation with presenting loyalist paramilitary collusion with British security services as the ultimate transgression; this preoccupation results in loyalist paramilitaries principally being portrayed as another arm of the state rather than a terrorist resistance group. This book will also explore the explanations for such a cinematic deficit. The most dominant explanation historically has been the hegemony of Hollywood cinema and its desire not to upset the sensibilities of an Irish nationalist supporting, Irish American audience. Using Tom Nairn’s notion of the ‘anti-imperialist myth’, McIlroy argues in favour of this by including American filmmakers as those “who prefer to accept the anti-­ imperialist view of Northern Ireland’s existence” (McIlroy 2001: 11). North American depictions have generally produced an image of the Troubles that sees Irish nationalists as an underdog liberation movement

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forced into fighting a malevolent British superpower with virtually no acknowledgement of the existence of unionism. Although the liberal consensus around the use of violence is never troubled and the characters with a nationalist political outlook are sometimes portrayed as the uncivilised Celt and of low intellect, their cause is generally seen as being more worthy and examined in much more detail than the cause of the unionists. This is particularly surprising when you consider how Irish republicans (republican is a term that tends to be used to describe the more militant, rebellious elements of Irish nationalism) are typically maligned and vilified in other forms of media, particularly in the British news media. These depictions have played a significant role in framing the conflict and establishing traditions of representation given that up until the 1980s Ireland had little autonomy over depictions of itself, with depictions almost entirely being produced by either Britain or the United States. The type of depictions produced from these countries also largely reduced Ireland to a primitive backward place and implied a contrast between the characteristics of Irish society and those of an apparently advanced modern society. This type of depiction also took two forms according to Hill, with Ireland either being presented as a “blissful, rural idyll” or a “primarily dark and strife torn maelstrom” (Hill 1987: 147). Due to large-scale Irish emigration to America encouraging a different perspective on Ireland, it is argued that Hollywood was more inclined to present Ireland as the former, whereas, due to Britain’s more direct legacy of military and political involvement, British productions were more inclined to present Ireland as the latter. This view of Ireland adopted by British productions is also claimed by Hill not to have emerged newly born, but rather “drew on the reservoir of ideas and images inherited from earlier historical periods” (Hill 1987: 148). Hollywood productions are also understood to present violence differently; whereas British films often see violence as the problem—or danger—that the narrative must resolve if the status quo is to be confirmed, Hollywood productions are more likely to see violence as a mechanism for problem-resolution (Hill 1987: 152). This is not to say that all depictions of nationalists are favourable in Hollywood films; a number of Hollywood films have irrefutably heinous Irish republican villains. However, the narratives are always careful to explain that these characters do not represent mainstream republicanism but are an extreme splinter group whose actions are detrimental to what would otherwise be a morally just republican cause. Mark Connelly notes:

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Movies like Patriot Games (Paramount, 1992) and Blown Away (MGM, 1994) however, made it clear that the heartless terrorist was an IRA renegade, making the actual organization appear more reasonable in contrast and avoiding offending the IRA’s American supporters. (Connelly 2012: 2)

A similar dynamic is also apparent in a more recent film, Martin Campbell’s The Foreigner (Campbell, 2017), which is based on Stephen Leather’s 1992 novel, The Chinaman. However, this explanation—that the cinematic deficit is generally the result of Hollywood’s pro-nationalist sympathies—doesn’t adequately explain why the cinematic deficit still exists in the films produced outside of North America and specifically in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, this explanation becomes increasingly problematic as despite Hollywood not producing any films about the Troubles since the beginning of the twenty-first century, specifically the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New  York and the new relationship the United States was forming with Britain in the run-up to the Iraq War, the cinematic deficit can be seen to continue. Another explanation often proffered is that unionists do not make films or at least don’t make films about the Troubles. Moreover, it is a stereotype that unionists are generally uninterested in the arts in comparison to their nationalist neighbours. This is a stereotype that has its origins as far back as 1944 when the Dublin dramatist Seán O’Casey wrote an article in the magazine Time and Tide that questioned whether Northern Ireland had ever produced anyone of the same calibre as Yeats (McIntosh 1999: 147). This seeming aversion to the arts is often seen as being reflected in the fact that there are so few unionists making films about the Troubles. An explanation suggested by the aforementioned Gary Mitchell is that working-class loyalists see the arts as a realm belonging to nationalists. He has stated: I believe there is a deep-rooted ignorance of the arts within loyalist communities. This is the reality I have always come across within loyalist areas— that they do not trust drama. They will tell you coldly that drama belongs to the Catholics—drama belongs to the nationalists. (McKittrick 2008)

Mitchell’s analysis correlates to how, particularly in Belfast, unionists traditionally worked in manual labour, either in the linen factories or in shipbuilding. Perhaps explaining nationalism’s dominance of the arts, these were jobs that nationalists largely didn’t have access to due to

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discrimination and preference in industries; access to education and the arts can be understood as a way for discriminated against nationalists to find a way out of unemployment. Mitchell’s analysis also correlates with Max Weber’s definition of the ‘Protestant work ethic’. This is a concept that emphasises that hard work, discipline and frugality are a result of a person’s subscription to the values espoused by the Protestant faith (Weber 1930). Although it may be essentialising, this concept offers one theory as to why the production of art, generally seen as the antithesis of the values that constitute the ‘Protestant work ethic’ concept, may not be traditionally considered as salient to the predominantly Protestant, unionist community. At the very least, this can be understood to have contributed to the creation of the stereotype. Indeed, this phenomenon, between unionism’s world of work and nationalism’s world of culture, is commented on in many of the films analysed in this book. In comparison, working-class nationalist communities appear to be a hub for creative talent as many of those involved in the production of the films explored within this research come from that background. McIlroy also attributes Irish nationalism’s interest in the arts to the republican movement, stating: Unquestionably, the republican movement in Ulster has sparked a remarkable rise of interest in the Irish language, history, music, dance and the visual arts. The Foyle Film Festival and the West Belfast Film Festival are part of this trend. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Field Day project and the success of Seamus Heaney in gaining the Nobel Prize for literature have underscored the general sympathy for Irish nationalism. (McIlroy 2001: 18)

Perhaps this perceived bias towards nationalism is only natural then given that nationalists are more active in making films about the conflict and the solution, therefore, is for unionists themselves to make more films and not to rely on films produced by outsiders. This necessity is made greater due to so many films produced in Northern Ireland funded and produced with the help of Screen Ireland and others in the Republic. Screen Ireland, formerly known as the Irish Film Board, is the Republic of Ireland’s state development agency for the Irish film, television and animation industry. The agency has also presented something of a problem in this regard as, despite Screen Ireland being set up to reap financial gain for the Republic of Ireland, it has always been all-Ireland in cultural orientation. This is a reflection of the art world in Ireland in general which, in

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truth, has never embraced partition. To counter this reliance on others, Baker suggests: Loyalism needs to be the subject of a politically informed cinema and it needs to be a participant in a critically engaged film culture if it is to challenge and change its lamentable image and reputation on screen. In short, if loyalism feels it has been misrepresented and misplaced in the films made by others, then the obvious solution is for loyalists to make their own. (Baker 2015: 95)

In 2008, the Chief Executive of Northern Ireland Screen (the national screen agency for Northern Ireland), Richard Williams, commented on the lack of unionists writing films. He argued that proposals for movies told from a unionist point of view are rare and states: There isn’t a pile of projects in our office that we’re somehow rejecting. That sort of material is rarely written—we receive more material that has a broad nationalist slant to it. Interestingly, writers from a Protestant background have a tendency to just shift away from here and ply their trade elsewhere. But even when they do stay here, they’ve a tendency not to write about this sort of thing. (McKittrick 2008)

The most dominant form of cultural expression espoused by unionist communities can be identified not on stage, in films or books but in the loyalist musical bands that accompany the Orange Order during their traditional and often-contentious parades. It is this specific form of cultural expression that led the Nobel Prize-winning poet and board member of the aforementioned Field Day Theatre Company, Seamus Heaney, to describe Lambeg drums (a loud percussion instrument historically used by loyalist bands) as presiding over unionist culture “like giant tumours” (Bennett 1998: 210). Terence Brown has also commented on the inadequacy of art produced by unionists when he states, “That [Protestant] imagination is one that in modern times (at least since 1886) had recourse to a vision of the protestant community’s history which is starkly simple in outline and depressingly lacking in emotional range and complexity” (Brown 1985: 5). The Belfast-born novelist and screenwriter, Ronan Bennett, expands on this by claiming that many of the actors who do come from a ‘Protestant’ background such as Kenneth Branagh and Stephen Rea have had to discard unionist culture to achieve artistic fulfilment. He explains:

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What Branagh shares with Rea, (Van) Morrison and (James) Galway and a host of other lesser known artists, is the realisation that to find artistic fulfilment he would have to look beyond the confines of the Protestant world. To remain is to be enclosed in a world where ‘culture’ is restricted to little more than flute bands, Orange marches and the chanting of sectarian slogans at football matches. (Bennett 1998: 210)

However, Gillian McIntosh argues that unionist expressions of their culture are not as redundant as some have claimed. She states, “Contrary to the argument of some commentators, unionist visions of their history and their expressions of their culture, in common with their nationalist counterparts, were neither lacking in emotional range, nor in complexity” (McIntosh 1999: 2). She justifies this point by claiming that, since the beginning of the state, rich political culture was key to presenting a homogenised Protestant state and creating a particular identity for Northern Ireland and an endorsement of unionist culture and rule. The manifestation of this unionist hegemony was most clearly identified in the large-scale public demonstrations and political culture associated with them in events such as the erection of the statue to the state’s founder, Edward Carson, in the Festival of Britain in Northern Ireland in 1951, and in the numerous royal visits which culminated in the triumphal coronation visit of Elizabeth II in 1953 (Ibid.). This also makes the cinematic deficit even more inexplicable as it poses the question: If unionists are competent, or at least were competent, in promoting their culture in such a way, why have they been so lacking when it comes to cinema? One theory is that unionists have traditionally been excellent at controlling and promoting narratives through mediums or in arenas that they had control over, for example, street marching displays, statues, monuments and royal visits, and unqualified at it when it comes to arenas they do not control, for example, film, literature, theatre and music. The latter arenas, unlike the former, thanks principally to political dominance in a state created for them, were always susceptible to being impinged upon by outsiders such as Britain, the Republic of Ireland and dissidents from within Northern Ireland.3 Likewise, an argument 3  Some arenas have a more complicated relationship with unionism; the BBC’s regional Northern Irish division, BBCNI, was heavily controlled by the unionist state, although again was not impervious to being impinged upon by BBC in London. Extensive work on this subject has been done and can be found in Robert Savage’s The BBC’s ‘Irish Troubles’: Television, Conflict and Northern Ireland (2015).

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could be made that nationalists attached themselves to media and the arts precisely because the nationalist community did not have access to the arenas that unionists controlled. In what perhaps is both a cause and product of this seeming lack of interest in popular art forms by unionists, or at least in popular art forms concerned with depicting the Troubles, the unionist political position is often found to be difficult to articulate. Chronicled by Baker, an anonymous contributor to a community discussion about working-class unionists in Northern Ireland once expressed this difficulty at self-articulation when they stated: We knew full well that the media were short-changing us when it came to representing ‘our’ side of the story, but what was our side of the story? We couldn’t even explain it properly ourselves. And it’s still the same. There’s plenty of times people around here have refused to take part in cross-­ community meetings, not because we don’t want to sit down with Catholics, but because we don’t have the self-confidence to do so. Few of us can articulate our case the way they can theirs. (Baker 2015: 83)

However, this inability is not just confined to the working class and can be seen to be endemic within unionism. Edna Longley contends, “Irish nationalism is sexier than unionism, partly thanks to clearer self-­articulation and better propaganda, partly to less tangible assets” (McKay 2005: 290). David McKittrick explains that journalists who visit Northern Ireland often speak admiringly of the presentational skills of nationalists, whilst saying they find unionists “shockingly poor at the business of winning friends and influencing people” (McKittrick 2008). As stated, unionism is certainly a much more complicated identity than nationalism and as such, it is both difficult to portray and exceptionally impractical to expect outsiders to adequately depict. In constructing a nationalist narrative, nationalists are able to draw on parallels with national liberation movements from elsewhere in the world. In contrast, the unionist narrative is much more unique with the only parallels ever drawn being with unseemly colonial regions, apartheid South Africa and the Ku Klux Klan (all of which are generally rejected as being comparable by unionists). Unionism is therefore devoid of the confidence and astuteness that nationalism can draw upon to articulate its position and, as Baker claims, results in unionists being unable to “articulate itself through anything other than its own exclusive idioms” (Baker 2015: 95).

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Another explanation provided as to why art typically produced from within unionism is often perceived to be inadequate relates to the increasing isolation unionism faces geographically, culturally, politically and socially; this explanation can also be considered somewhat ironic given the global nature of the British identity historically. The aforementioned Belfast-born actor, Stephen Rea, when asked about his nationalist political outlook being unusual for someone from a unionist background, explains, “Unionists were, and still are, cut off not just from Catholics and from Ireland, but from the world. It’s pure isolation. And it is so drummed into the young that they cannot let go of these views” (O’Hagan 2018). This isolation and confinement are exemplified by the current leaders of political unionism, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), being constantly criticised for their illiberal and conservative views on social and environmental issues. Indeed, the most vociferous criticism often comes from the mainland United Kingdom where a modern secular British society can in many ways be seen to be the antithesis of Northern Irish unionism. Certainly, the Northern Irish unionist identity is not a form of Britishness that is easily accepted by a liberal Britain that has itself been influenced by Irishness to a significant degree due to its close proximity and a large number of Irish immigrants. On the island of Ireland, the Republic of Ireland continues to prosper independently and become increasingly more socially liberal. As a result, this highlights unionism’s lack of desire to expand and grow its cultural identity and its preference for defending what cultural product it has, however obstinate it might seem to others. McKittrick explains that the perceived unionist narrative is “one of a reactionary frontier community grimly holding on and opposing change. That may be something of a parody, but it is enough to make film-makers shudder and turn their attentions elsewhere” (McKittrick 2008). Certainly, these are not attributes that make this narrative attractive to storytellers. In contrast, the attractiveness of nationalist narratives and perspectives can be understood by analysing film and storytelling customs. Irish nationalism is perceived as being inherently about the rebel and the underdog fighting injustice of some sort, material that is a staple of traditional storytelling. Martin McLoone even argues that the cinematic deficit is “the result of the conventions of mainstream cinema itself, the generic requirements that are the basis of all narrative cinema and which are particularly relevant to the thriller format” (McLoone 2008: 196). A hero that must overcome seemingly insurmountable odds is certainly a necessary requirement for the thriller genre of film and—as exemplified by the

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empire-rebellion dynamic in one of Hollywood’s most successful franchises, Star Wars—the narrative of the Irish rebel fighting the British Empire can be understood to be better suited to this model of storytelling. Due to the potential for not just drama but action and inevitably leading to some films being exploitative in nature, paramilitaries have naturally been the focus for most filmmakers depicting the conflict. It is important therefore to note that—like their representation on screen—loyalist and republican paramilitaries differ in many ways and that the different nature of both has also been considered as an explanation for the cinematic deficit. McKittrick explains: In movie terms everyone knows the IRA, but many in Hollywood and elsewhere know little or nothing about loyalism. Outsiders who take the trouble to research the Protestant paramilitary undergrowth generally recoil from what they find. They quickly discover that loyalists killed over a thousand people, the majority of them uninvolved Catholic civilians, often in sectarian assassinations. This is, to say the least, unpromising territory for a feature film. (McKittrick 2008)

Furthermore, the nature of loyalist violence can be seen to cause loyalist paramilitaries to be viewed differently. In their violent defence of the state, loyalists were inclined to view all Catholics as co-conspirators in undermining the state and therefore legitimate targets. Conversely, despite carrying out insurgent operations against the state and, in the process producing acts of violence, republicans can nevertheless be perceived as fighting the state in a legitimate war. Put simply, whilst loyalists, republicans and the state committed what most people would consider atrocities, it could be argued that violence by republicans falls more easily into a cinematic narrative of resistance against a powerful and violent state. It is true that at least a general assumption exists—particularly among filmmakers—that loyalist violence is more consistently indiscriminate and that paramilitaries of the unionist variety are nothing more than hard men and gangsters. Much of this understanding is brought about by the belief that rather than simply carrying out politically motivated violence in the manner of republicans, unionism can revel in the atrocities it commits. As well as making some filmmakers recoil, the seeming villainy of loyalist paramilitaries has also attracted a small number of filmmakers who wish to explore this heinousness. Films about the notorious loyalist paramilitary

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gang, The Shankill Butchers, who mutilated, tortured and killed random Catholic civilians, are the most obvious example of this and will be explored in detail later in this research. Regarding comparable atrocities carried out by republicans and whilst acknowledging the exceptional nature of the Shankill Butchers’ crimes, it could be argued that for all the crimes committed by republican paramilitaries there isn’t an example of such heinousness on the republican side. Conor Cruise O’Brien, not a sympathiser to the republican cause himself, when discussing the Shankill Butchers’ leader Lenny Murphy, claimed that due to tighter discipline within the organisation and a greater interest in how they were being perceived by the public, the Provisional IRA (Irish Republican Army) “never unleashed on society anyone quite like Lenny Murphy” (Dillon 1990: xiii). Rather than rectify the cinematic deficit, this focus on the unionist community’s most extreme members naturally furthers unionism’s abject reputation. This bias against loyalist paramilitaries could also be the result of a belief in collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and the British state as being the major transgression. Some filmmakers are inclined to strike up rather than down, in part due to the anti-authoritarian nature of some filmmaking traditions and in part due to a desire not to emulate anything that could be conceived as state propaganda. Therefore, filmmakers can be understood to be naturally intrigued by the idea of the revered British state resorting to undemocratic and corrupt tactics to quell a rebellion and wish to question how far up the political system responsibility for such criminality and hypocrisy lies. Sympathy with paramilitaries implicit in such collusion can naturally be understood to be unlikely with sympathy for paramilitaries adversely affected by it to be more expected. It is also important to remember that on-screen representations do not exist in isolation and are influenced significantly by a multitude of sources. Many identify the tabloid media as a key medium through which depictions and understandings of unionists are consumed. Peter Shirlow argues that the medium is a key driver in establishing a negative perception of working-class loyalism which submerges signs of progressive change from within the community (Shirlow 2012: 201). He explains, “It may be that media-driven depictions are excessively generated but any mark upon which the regressive and stunting forms of Loyalist activity remain will never permit such accounts to evaporate” (Shirlow 2012: 202). Tony Novosel also points out that it is important to challenge the traditional representation of loyalists as “unthinking, mindless thugs who never had a political thought”, a type of stereotype he claims is reinforced in

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biographies of loyalist paramilitaries such as Johnny Adair (Mad Dog: The Rise and Fall of Johnny Adair and ‘C’ Company) and Michael Stone (None Shall Divide Us) (Novosel 2013: 3). He suggests that a failure to do so only hinders our understanding of the history of paramilitarism and why the conflict lasted so long (Novosel 2013: xix). McAuley also pays specific attention to how the media in general understands working-class loyalism. He finds that the portrayals “don’t even begin to encompass the loyalist paramilitary experience, let alone identify those who seek to express different visions of loyalism in the political or civic arena” (McAuley 2016: 4). He also argues that the term “loyalist” is increasingly used by the media as shorthand for all that is bad about unionism and that contemporary journalism is focused on either those within loyalism with seeming sociopathic tendencies or those who express a visceral, irrational and sectarian worldview (McAuley 2016: 3). In 2015, Baker published a report for the Office of First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland on the media representation of loyalism. In it, he discusses the potential consequences of this lamentable public portrayal and claims they include a “bias against understanding the politics of Northern Ireland generally, as well as those of unionism and loyalism specifically; poor community self-esteem and alienation; and a hindrance to cross-community dialogue” (Baker 2015b: 1). This book focuses on the period from the 1980s onwards as before this only several films released in cinemas featured identifiable unionist characters.  These include a 1956 British film called Jacqueline (Ward Baker, 1956) and a 1974 Canadian film called A Quiet Day in Belfast (Bessada, 1974). In Jacqueline, a film about a Belfast labourer in the shipyards whose daughter helps him find work after he loses his job, the Queen’s coronation is celebrated merrily with a street party in Belfast. In the ironically titled, A Quiet Day in Belfast, a film partly about a romance between a local Catholic girl and a British soldier, loyalist paramilitaries blow up a Catholic Church before they themselves are blown up by an IRA bomb. However, even in these films there are only subtle and fleeting depictions of identifiably unionist characters. One reason for the lack of representation before the 1980s was because the Northern Ireland government impacted filmmaking significantly through a conscious strategy focused on incentivising what was called a “Go Ahead Ulster” vision for screen depictions of Northern Ireland (Christie et  al. 2009: 45). The unionist government had an intentional policy of driving public attention away from social and inter-communal

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strife and towards a more positive vision of the region as a harmonious, modern economy and society (Ibid.). As a result, any allusion to Northern Ireland’s warring factions was rare in British cinema and any acknowledgment of sectarian hostility was suppressed by the state as much as possible. McIntosh describes the state at this time as officially being a “united and homogenous protestant state” whilst unofficially being a diverse state “made up of catholics as well as a variety of protestant sects, and full of tension and disharmony” (McIntosh 1999: 3). Notable examples of the state discouraging, refusing to support and censoring film productions it did not like include the production of two of the most famous films set in Northern Ireland, the 1936 film Ourselves Alone (Hurst, 1936) and the 1947 film, Odd Man Out. Brian Desmond Hurst’s Ourselves Alone, a film which depicts a love story set against the backdrop of the Irish War of Independence, was banned in Northern Ireland under the Civil Authorities Act 1922 despite being passed for public exhibition by the British Board of Film Classification. The Northern Ireland government also refused a formal request for government co-­ operation for Carol Reed’s Odd Man Out, a film where James Mason plays the leader of an unnamed Republican organisation. Subsequently, despite being set in Belfast, the bulk of the film had to be filmed in London with only several scenes shot in Belfast (Hill 2006: 125). Furthermore, indigenous film production in Northern Ireland was limited in the post-1945 period and policies of the British Film Institute, whose remit was to support film as a cultural practice and educational tool in Britain’s regions, excluded Northern Ireland (Pettitt 2000: 40). In North American productions that depicted the conflict in Ireland, unionism was largely omitted as well during this time. This was perhaps due to the likelihood that it would complicate the dominant and simplistic narrative extolled in Hollywood films that the conflict in Ireland was solely a feud between Ireland and Britain. This book aims to explain why this cinematic deficit regarding unionism being depicted less frequently and favourably than Irish nationalism exists whilst offering a comprehensive analysis of unionist representation in fiction film. The focus is on feature-length fictions films that received a cinematic release; so short films, documentaries and television films are not covered in detail. The reason for these exclusions is due to it being beyond the scope of the project given that a comprehensive analysis of depictions is the intention. Much of the research carried out previously has focused on Protestantism, or at least used the term ‘Protestant’ to describe

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the ethnic group in Northern Ireland that are generally Protestant, unionist and British. Whilst acknowledging that the terms are often used interchangeably and that any attempt to completely omit one risks ignoring the nuanced composition of the identity, in using the term ‘Northern Irish unionist’, the intention is for the research to be concerned with the political and cultural, rather than religious affiliation. Unionist or British signifiers will be necessary for depictions to be considered for inclusion. Therefore, the research will be interested in characters from Northern Ireland that communicate a desire to maintain the union with Great Britain either through dialogue or through engagement in politics, paramilitarism, unionist and British traditions or expressions of cultural identity. Protestant signifiers alone are not enough for characters and themes to be considered. For that matter, what some might consider another indicator of unionism, being a member of the security services during the Troubles, is also not considered a signifier. The work will also seek to establish whether Irish cinema is following an established tradition of representation.  Many of the fiction films  included are literary adaptations and depictions found in the source materials must be a factor. Beyond this, though, is there another rationale for the type of representation chosen?

References Baker, Stephen. 2015a. Loyalism on Film and Out of Context. In: The Contested Identities of Ulster Protestants. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ———. 2015b. Traditions in Transition: A report for the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister on the media representation of loyalism. Barton, Ruth. 2019. Irish Cinema in the Twenty-first Century. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Bennett, Ronan. 1998. Don’t Mention the War. In: Rethinking Northern Ireland. New York: Addison Wesley Longman Limited. Brown, Terence. 1985. The Whole Protestant Community: The Making of a Historical Myth. Derry: Field Day Theatre Company. Christie, Ian, et al. 2009. Stories We Tell Ourselves: The Cultural Impact of UK Film 1946-2006. UK Film Council. Connelly, Mark. 2012. The IRA on Film and Television. North Carolina: McFarland & Company. Dillon, Martin. 1990. The Shankill Butchers: A Case Study of Mass Murder. London: Arrow. Hill, John. 1987. Images of Violence. In: Cinema and Ireland. Kent: Biddles. ———. 2006. Cinema and Northern Ireland. London: British Film Institute.

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Leather, Stephen. 1992. The Chinaman. London: Hodder and Stoughton. McAuley, James. 2016. Very British Rebels? The Culture and Politics of Ulster Loyalism. London: Bloomsbury. McIlroy, Brian. 2001. Shooting to Kill: Filmmaking and the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. 2nd ed. Richmond, BC: Steveston Press. ———. 2006. The Repression of communities: Visual Representations of Northern Ireland during the Thatcher Years. In: Fires were Started: British Cinema and Thatcherism. London: Wallflower Press. McIntosh, Gillian. 1999. The Force of Culture: Unionist Identities in Twentieth Century Ireland. Cork: Cork University Press. McKay, Susan. 2005. Northern Protestants: An Unsettled People. 2nd ed. Belfast: Blackstaff Press. McKittrick, David. 2008. Why are all the Troubles’ films about republicans? Belfast Telegraph. Accessed 5 October 2022 https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/ opinion/why-­are-­all-­the-­troubles-­films-­about-­republicans-­28453966.html. McLaughlin, Cahal. 2004. Filmic representations of the British-Irish conflict since the ceasefire of 1994. In: Relocating Britishness. Manchester: Manchester University Press. McLoone, Martin. 2006. Moving Images: Cinema and the Re-Imagining of Ireland. In: Re-Imaging Ireland. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. ———. 2008. Film, Media and Popular Culture in Ireland: Cityscapes, Landscapes, Soundscapes. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. Novosel, Tony. 2013. Northern Ireland’s Lost Opportunity: The Frustrated Promise of Political Loyalism. London: Pluto Press. O’Hagan, Sean. 2018. Stephen Rea: ‘No matter how much they enforce Brexit, British identity is dwindling’. The Guardian. Accessed 5 October 2022 https:// www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/sep/30/stephen-­r ea-­british-­identity­is-­dwindling-­brexit-­samuel-­beckett-­cyprus-­avenue. Pettitt, Lance. 2000. Screening Ireland: Film and television representation. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Shirlow, Peter. 2012. The End of Ulster Loyalism? Manchester: Manchester University Press. Spencer, Graham. 2006. The Decline of Ulster Unionism: The Problem of Identity, Image and Change. Contemporary Politics 12: 45–63. Sutton, Malcolm. 2002. Revised and Updated Extracts from Sutton’s Book. CAIN Archive. Accessed 5 October 2022 https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/sutton/ book/index.html. Weber, Max. 1930. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Trans. R.H. Tawney. London: Allen & Unwin.

CHAPTER 2

An Emergence of Unionist Representation in British Cinema

Between 1981 and 1985 a proliferation of depictions of unionists emerged in British cinema. This chapter will seek to explain the reasons such an increase in unionist representation occurred whilst specifically analysing the type of depictions found in five British films: Maeve (Murphy and Davies, 1981), Angel (Jordan, 1982), Ascendancy (Bennett, 1982), Cal (O’Connor, 1984) and No Surrender (Smith, 1985). Some of the reasons for the increase in unionist representation at this time include the materialisation of the New Irish Cinema movement and the formation of both the Irish Film Board in Ireland and Film Four productions in the United Kingdom. The Irish republican hunger strikes can also be identified as having a significant influence on depictions. Although television productions are not the primary interest of this research, it is important to note that other screen depictions of unionists emerged around this time. Too Late To Talk To Billy (Seed, 1982) was broadcast on television in 1982 and is an adaptation of a Graham Reid play about a troubled working-class family living on the loyalist Donegall Road in Belfast. It is also the first of three films known as the “Billy Trilogy” to feature in the BBC’s Play For Today anthology drama series. In 1984, Mike Leigh’s Four Days in July (Leigh, 1984) is another notable BBC television film that depicted unionists. The film is about the daily lives of two couples on either side of Northern Ireland’s sectarian divide as they both expect their first child.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Gallagher, Screening Ulster, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23436-1_2

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The Hunger Strikes By 1981, Northern Ireland had already experienced a decade of conflict. Due to the scale of the violence, the British Army had been deployed in the region since 1969. The Northern Ireland state had existed—however problematically—for almost 60 years and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) had solely been the government of the region for the entirety of the state’s existence. During this period of unionist control, the nationalist minority was significantly discriminated against in terms of jobs, housing and voting rights (Farrell 1980: 87). The year, 1981, would be dominated by an Irish Republican hunger strike that would garner worldwide media attention. The hunger strike was the culmination of a five-year protest by Irish republican prisoners in the Maze and Armagh prisons. The dispute between prisoners and the British government began when special category status, also referred to as political status, for paramilitary prisoners was withdrawn in 1976 leading initially to a “blanket protest”. This would escalate to a “no wash protest” in 1978 where prisoners refused to wash and covered the walls of their cells with excrement. In 1980 the dispute would escalate again when prisoners went on a hunger strike that was called off after 53 days. However, the second hunger strike in 1981 would prompt media attention from around the world due to one of the hunger strikers, Bobby Sands, being elected during the strike as a Member of the British Parliament. The protest was not called off until after ten hunger strikers had died, including Sands, whose funeral was attended by 100,000 people. According to Jack Holland, up until this point, there was a pro-British consensus in the US media; the hunger strike, Sands’ election and the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s hard-line approach saw the tide begin to turn and an endpoint for a period of unquestioning of the British position by the US media (Holland 1999: 11).

Maeve (1981) Maeve (Murphy and Davies, 1981) is a film funded by a £73,000 grant from the British Film Institute with £10,000 in funding coming from the Republic of Ireland’s national broadcaster, Radió Teilifis Éireann (RTÉ). The film was shot in Belfast with the writer and co-director, Pat Murphy, calling it the first feature-length film entirely shot and cast in the city (Sullivan 1999). The film follows the eponymous character Maeve Sweeney

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(Mary Jackson) and uses an experimental narrative structure to explore the relationship between feminism and Irish republicanism; the film posits that Irish nationalist women are oppressed by their own community just as that community is oppressed by the dominant unionist community. Lance Pettitt explains that the film uses “cinema to critique Irish nationalist history, republican politics in particular, and practice ‘herstory’ through the medium of film” (Pettitt 2020: 209). Maeve is of the New Irish Cinema period, defined by Martin McLoone as lasting from 1977–1988 when a younger generation of Irish filmmakers such as Murphy, Bob Quinn, Neil Jordan and Joe Comerford sought to challenge the typical sanitised portrayals of Ireland that had existed and instead offer a more realistic depiction. Harvey O’Brien describes this in the context of a wider European movement as being a determination amongst “independent indigenous filmmakers everywhere that a National cinema should express not so much a single, coherent view of the nation as express the informed personal perspectives of artists with something to say about their own society” (O’Brien 2006: 12). O’Brien acknowledges that by the mid-1970s this attitude had begun to ferment in Ireland. He states, “By the early 1980s, it was evident that Irish film had found its feet as a means of serious self-scrutiny and a challenge to expectations of Irish identity” (Ibid.). This move towards an exploration of societal problems, national identity and a more realistic portrayal of the nation made it possible therefore for unionism to be included and acknowledged. Maeve’s story is told in flashbacks with her return to Belfast and her encounters provoking memories of the past. In one of these flashbacks, Maeve, as a schoolgirl, walks home through a housing estate that is identified as a unionist area by a large wooden arch bedecked in British and Orange symbolism at the entrance. She passes a group of children playing on the street and enters her home, which at this time in her life is seemingly in this unionist area. She learns that her younger sister had been punched and called a “Fenian bitch” by someone called “the wee McQuoid”. Recognising this person as one of the children outside that she had walked past, Maeve runs out and seeks retribution for her sister. Stephen Baker finds the “wee McQuoid” to be the progeny of a union seen elsewhere in the film when the older Maeve watches a young woman, who he describes as presumably Maeve’s Protestant counterpart, having loveless, passionless sex with a British soldier in uniform. He describes the scene as “an allegory for a deficient, dispassionate union between ulster

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loyalism and Britain” (Baker 2015: 86). Seen through this lens, the following sequence can be seen to also have an allegorical dimension. Maeve strikes the boy with her hand and is then quickly restrained by the other children. This allows the young McQuoid to grab a brick and threaten Maeve by stating, “You better watch it wee doll. I know your face.” Before walking off, he feigns to throw the brick at Maeve’s head. This is not the end of the matter as McQuoid’s mother later knocks on the Sweeneys’ front door. The family does not answer causing the McQuoid matriarch to take it upon herself to go around the side of the house to the back door, where windows mean Maeve and her family cannot hide from her. This scene is made all the more tense by Maeve’s exclamation, “Jesus, I can hear her coming round the back.” This is the first example of what would become recurring themes in the film: the Sweeneys’ property not being their own and unionist entitlement. The film cuts before the confrontation is seen and the only image of the supposedly threatening McQuoid mother is a brief image of her through a frosted glass window as the camera pans to signify that she was making her way around the side of the house. The problems facing the Sweeneys persist and reach a climax in the sequence that follows, eventually leading to the family leaving the area. Firstly, Maeve and her sister watch a marching band from a bedroom window and secondly, later that night the family is sitting on the sofa watching the Twelfth celebrations on the television when a projectile is thrown through their window. The playing of the traditional loyalist song, “The Sash My Father Wore”, links these two scenes. Firstly, the marching band outside Maeve’s home plays the song and then—without interruption—it is also playing on the television later that night as highlights of the Twelfth celebrations are broadcast. Without a break in the playing of the song, the film implies that the music has never stopped and therefore neither does the family’s feelings of alienation and intimidation. These feelings are also expressed by the fact that the family watches these celebrations removed, either through a window or on the television. What they watch is a cultural identity that is not theirs, signalled by the fact that Maeve and her sister are wearing nightgowns, clearly outsiders. Also, as portrayed by their body language, at no point do the family seem to be enjoying what they are watching, but rather are transfixed and contemplative. The broadcasting of the Twelfth celebrations on television also suggests there is a systemic nature to the problems that cause such alienation and intimidation. In particular, the BBC’s role in fostering the promotion of Britishness is

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described by McLoone as having been particularly problematic in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. He explains: If the BBC […] was an important agency for promoting and sustaining a consensus notion of ‘Britishness’ within the UK as a whole, this role was considerably compromised in the divided community of the North, where notions of ‘Britishness’ were at the centre of controversy and dispute. (McLoone 1996: 3)

Later, an older Maeve walks into the living room of her house to find the news is being broadcast on the radio. It features a speech by the Reverend Ian Paisley who was a politician and Protestant religious leader who founded both the right-wing political party, the DUP, and the fundamentalist Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster. From the mid-1960s, he led and instigated loyalist opposition to the civil rights movement that advocated equality of civil rights (Jordan 2018: 4). He opposed all attempts to resolve the conflict through power sharing between unionists and nationalists and all attempts to involve the Republic of Ireland in the governing of Northern Ireland. Paisley’s words are introduced by a newsreader with a middle-class English accent which marks a distinct contrast from the working-class Belfast accents generally heard in the film. Furthermore, the newsreader appears to show deference to Paisley as he introduces him by stating: “Mr. Paisley was in powerful form this morning, in an hour long news conference where he discussed what he described as the anger and frustration of many loyalists in Ulster. There was, he said, two options open to them.” Paisley, himself, goes on to explain that one of the options available to loyalists in Ulster is to “engage in a revolution in which there would be bombing and killing and violence of the worst form”. The inclusion of a speech where an English newsreader shows such deference to Paisley by describing him as being in “powerful form”, at a time when he is claiming armed insurrection is a viable option for his followers, is again suggestive of the systemic nature of the problems facing Maeve’s family and the nationalist community. The most menacing depiction of loyalism identified in the film comes in a scene where a young Maeve encounters a man, played by George Shane. Maeve’s father (Mark Mulholland), working as a bread delivery man, ventures into a unionist town and briefly leaves his daughter alone in his van. Maeve realises she is being watched by a group of men on the other side of the street, their position perhaps a metaphor for the fact that

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they come from a different community than Maeve. One man makes his way over and the threatening nature of his movement is accentuated. As he approaches what Maeve sees and the composition of the frame becomes increasingly dominated by the man’s dark figure and sullen face. The themes of property not being the family’s own and unionist entitlement can again be identified and emphasised by the cinematographic choices. The man takes it upon himself to first knock loudly on the van’s window and then open the passenger door without the slightest hint of an invite from the young Maeve. Clearly intimidated, Maeve purposely looks the opposite direction from the man towards the shop where her father is located. A Union flag waving in the wind can be seen as this encounter progresses, the image reflecting off the van’s windscreen; this specific use of mise-en-scène and cinematography is a specific filmic device that provides some subtle exposition as to why this area is so hostile for Maeve and her father, whilst also heightening the sense of danger that the young girl faces. The man continues to intimidate Maeve by asking: “Did you drive up from the Free State today?” Maeve quietly answers by stating that she is from Belfast, this in turn causes the man to question why then do they have ‘free state’ license plates. After explaining that the van was bought in Cork and reaffirming that she is from Belfast the man returns to trying to ascertain the girl’s cultural identity by asking whereabouts in Belfast she’s from. A knowing Maeve doesn’t respond to this question and the man continues, “Well you’ll not sell your Free State cakes here I’ll tell you.” Maeve’s father coming out of the shop interrupts their encounter. Before leaving, he returns the cakes to the back of the van ignoring the threatening figure of the man who had made his way next to him. The man appears again at the end of the film when an older Maeve visits the Giant’s Causeway. This time, however, he mysteriously has an English accent. The reason for this specific characteristic is unclear; whether or not the character is also the same character from the earlier scene in the loyalist town is therefore also unclear. The one thing that is for certain is that the same actor, George Shane, plays the character Maeve interacts with on both occasions. Like her previous encounter, Maeve is clearly not enamoured with the man. Whilst sitting on one of the Causeways’ interlocking basalt columns at the edge of the coastline, again without invitation, he approaches her from behind and sits next to her. As well as the previous theme of property not being one’s own, this perhaps acts as a microcosm for Northern Ireland in that both communities must traverse the same finite territory. He proclaims without being prompted and in what seems

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a staged theatrical tone, “Nothing between you and the North Pole.” Maeve ignores him, her inaction causing him to cross behind her and position himself on a column that enables him to get even closer and look down into her face. “Do you know there’s over 38,000 stones in this causeway? I counted them and there’s only one stone that’s octagonal. All the rest have six or seven sides,” he continues. Maeve asks him which is the octagonal one and with his theatrical tone becoming even more pronounced, he responds, “I’ve forgotten now. I put a mark on it so I’d remember. But the ocean washed the mark away.” Jessica Scarlatta comments on this particular piece of dialogue, “The peacoated stranger’s performative grandeur, implying the futility of marking and claiming space in the face of (mother) nature, becomes somewhat ironic when moments later his unionist sympathies are revealed” (Scarlatta 2013: 63). These sympathies are revealed as he bellows theatrically into the sea an incoherent series of passages from poetry and the King James Bible. The most obvious example of his unionist sympathies being on display comes when he includes the anti-home rule cry “Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right” in his ramblings. This term is most associated with Lord Randolph Churchill who, in 1911, told a large crowd of gathered unionists in the outskirts of Belfast to prepare to take on the government if a Home Rule Bill was passed (McIntosh 1999: 159). The irony that Scarlatta alludes to is that the futility of marking the rock can be understood as a metaphor for the futility of unionism’s claiming of territory that is continuously being consumed. The location where this event occurs is also significant, the man stands at the very tip of the north coast of Ireland; this is perhaps an allegory for Protestantism in Ireland, a people gradually pushed to the margins and defiantly holding on to what territory they can. The New Irish Cinema movement and a valuing of national self-­scrutiny in indigenous film productions meant that unionism could no longer be ignored by Irish cinema. However, Maeve is only ever interested in unionism’s relationship with nationalism; the film is still typical of cinema about the Troubles, in that it is still predominantly about nationalism and from a nationalist perspective. Furthermore, by postulating that unionism is the ultimate oppressor the film never attempts to humanise the unionists it depicts. One unionist critic in particular who did not react warmly to the film was Alexander Walker; writing in the London-based Evening Standard in September 1981, Walker didn’t find the film’s feminist critique of nationalist Ireland a redeemable quality and instead described the film as

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“a tedious celluloid about the Republican cause in Ulster” (Liddy 2020: 304). In 1994, Murphy attempts to explain why unionism isn’t explored more in the film and why a similar film from a unionist perspective hasn’t been made by highlighting the personal as a reason for filmmaking. People often question the lack of Unionism in Maeve, and I think this lack occurs because of my background. I don't come out of a Unionist background. I think the more important question we should ask is why aren't Unionist women making film? A number of people have tried to address this, and they have suggested that Republican women have a different relationship to the state […] rather than attack Maeve because it doesn't address Unionism, we need to wonder why we have not seen films by Unionist women. Because Unionist work was not censored or prohibited, we have to ask, in a curious rather than a critical way, why we don't see film by Unionist women. (Sullivan 1999)

Although Murphy’s question is an interesting one and her concern is valid, her framing of the issue of agency solely in feminist terms somewhat ignores the fact that there is both a lack of unionists making films in general and a lack of women making films about the Troubles in general. Nevertheless, Murphy’s questioning of why unionist women do not make films is similar to the explanation often proffered as to why such a cinematic deficit seemingly exists in films about Northern Ireland and that is that those from the unionist community don’t tend to become filmmakers. Indeed, writing in 1998, Brian McIlroy, seemingly using the term ‘Roman Catholics’ as shorthand for someone being from the Irish nationalist community, explains, “The vast majority of Irish films and videos made on the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’ have been conceived and executed by Roman Catholics” (McIlroy 2001: 146).

Angel (1982) The next production to depict unionism was Angel (Jordan, 1982), a film released in cinemas the following year (in some territories, such as the United States, the film is called Danny Boy). It was produced by English filmmaker, John Boorman, and was the directorial debut of one of Ireland’s most acclaimed filmmakers, Neil Jordan. The director’s filmography includes several films that deal with the Northern Irish Troubles; most

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notably, The Crying Game (Jordan, 1992) won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film and an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Jordan is also considered an integral part of the aforementioned New Irish Cinema movement, and Angel can be seen to challenge typical portrayals of Ireland and embody much of the movement’s ideals. Angel was funded by sources within both the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. In the Republic of Ireland, it received £100,000 from the newly formed Irish Film Board, now known as Screen Ireland, the state’s development agency for Irish cinema. The board was set up in 1980 after a sustained period of agitation from indigenous Irish filmmakers who had joined together to form the Association of Independent Producers to lobby for the government to aid film production; accordingly, the funding of Angel was seen as a significant victory. In the United Kingdom, the film also received £400,000 in funding by the newly formed Film Four productions; a British production company owned by the television network Channel 4 and set up in 1982, the same year as Angel’s release. Channel 4 had a remit to innovate and take bold creative risks; similarly, Film Four had a remit to be committed to making indigenous British productions, especially original screenplays on contemporary social and political issues (Hill 1999: 56). However, unlike many of the other films produced at this time by those involved in the New Irish Cinema movement and by Film Four, Jordan’s film does not follow a naturalist approach, but instead follows in the vein of Carol Reed’s Odd Man Out (Reed, 1949) by almost entirely removing the action from its socio-­ political context. Some critics, such as John Hill, claim that this a-­historical approach also follows in the tradition of films failing to question whether the violence of the Troubles is politically motivated. Hill explains, “By attempting to show all violence as the same, irrespective of political context or motivation, the film defies the possibility of any political explanation, and, indeed, any political solution, to the conflicts which are occurring” (Hill 1987: 180). Like Murphy and Davies’ film, Angel’s depiction of unionists is also often overlooked by audiences. This could be the result of the loyalist paramilitary gang depicted in the film being misunderstood to be a republican paramilitary gang, and specifically the IRA. This possible misunderstanding is perhaps a product of the omnipresence of the IRA in films and literature about Ireland and the creative choice to remove the action from its socio-political context. As a result, the film does not make the determining of the gang’s political affiliation easy, nevertheless there are subtle

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signifiers that can be identified. The most obvious sign that the gang is loyalist comes when one of the killer’s girlfriends calls him a ‘Prod’ (a derogatory term for a Protestant). In the scene, the gang member tells the women, “I like you Beth, you’re my soul.” Her response to this is to jokingly respond, “You’re a Prod. They don’t have souls.” McIlroy explains that the gang’s ringleader being found at the end of the film to be a policeman further strengthens the claim that the gang is loyalist. Seemingly using “Protestant” as shorthand for being from the unionist community again, McIlroy states, “Some critics argue that the specifics of religion/ allegiance are unclear; but, a knowledgeable viewer knows that because the policeman is the ring-leader of the gang, this is almost certainly a Protestant paramilitary group” (McIlroy 2006: 82). However, some commentators believe that the gang’s political affiliation is unclear and even state that the decision to remove the action from the socio-political context is central to the film’s intentions. For example, Ruth Barton explains, “The film never identifies the paramilitaries or makes it clear whether their allegiance is to republicanism or loyalism – all, it is suggested, are the same” (Barton 2004: 157). Looking at the film from this perspective, Angel can be seen to condemn both sides equally. However, the evidence in support of the gang being loyalist cannot be ignored and Hill even claims that the film draws loosely on real-life murders carried out by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF): Drawing loosely on the murders of members of the Miami Showband by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in 1975, Neil Jordan’s Angel also shows loyalist paramilitaries, even though the film’s vagueness about social and political detail means that it is commonly regarded as referring to IRA violence. (Hill 2006: 196)

The 1975 event that Hill refers to has come to be known as the Miami Showband massacre. The Miami Showband were one of Ireland’s most popular cabaret acts and were travelling home to Dublin after a performance in Banbridge when they were stopped by what they thought was a British Army checkpoint. Armed members of the British Army’s Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) and the UVF ordered the band members to line up along the roadside. Attempting to hide a bomb on the minibus, two of the gunmen were blown up when it went off prematurely (BBC 2020). The other gunmen then opened fire on the band members, killing three and wounding two. To what extent the event influenced the film is

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difficult to determine; however, the decision to centre the film on an elaborately dressed showband touring the same region as the real-life Miami Showband certainly brings the event to mind. An early piece of dialogue that includes the line “Are they paying us danger money?” may also be a subtle reminder of the event. The gang in the film is also just as ruthless as the UVF members who carried out the attack and the film depicts state collusion with loyalist paramilitaries. Their ruthlessness is apparent from the gang’s first appearance in the film when they pull up outside the ballroom in a car after everyone has gone home for the night except Danny (Stephen Rea), a sax player who acts as the film’s protagonist, a deaf-mute girl (Veronica Quilligan) he has befriended and with whom he has possibly had sex, and his band’s manager (Peter Caffrey). Out of view of the gunmen, Danny and the deaf-­ mute girl watch as the gang forcefully drag the band’s manager out of the club. Armed and with their faces hidden behind balaclavas and tights that are stretched over their heads, the gang’s intentions soon become clear when they accuse the band manager of ‘making payments’; this refers to giving protection money to the IRA and therefore disadvantaging the loyalist gunmen. The band manager pleads that he “was told to” before being quickly shot, first in the gut and then in the head as he lies prone on the ground. The deaf-mute girl, perhaps not sure as to what has occurred, walks into view of the gunmen. Seeing her, one of the gang asks, “Who the fuck is she?” Another responds, “It doesn’t matter who she is”, before giving approval for her to be brutally killed as well. The gang then takes off in the car hastily before a bomb explodes and Danny runs towards the girl’s body. Identifying one gunman as having a clubfoot, the rest of the film follows a vengeful Danny as he hunts down and kills the members of the gang individually. The first gang member he tracks down is the man with the clubfoot (Gerard McSorley). However, unlike the other members, Danny kills him before any justification for his actions are articulated. Upon searching his home, Danny does not find anything other than one of the guns used in the murders; his home does not offer any indications as to his political or religious affiliation, although IRA graffiti daubed next to his front door may suggest that oppression by his local community could be one motivating factor for his actions. Danny then tracks the next gang member, George (Tony Rohr), down to his coastal home. He searches the man’s house before killing him but there is again no indicator of political or religious affiliation. However, this time, the character is able to articulate

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some justification for his actions. Referring to the band manager he says, “He was making payments, protection money. He was vermin. What do you do with vermin?” When asked about the girl he denies that it was he who killed her and explains, “I don’t know about her. She just appeared.” Marking a contrast from the weak and panicked George, the last gang member (Ian McElhinney) is much more malevolent and a character more in keeping with the monstrous perception of loyalist paramilitaries reinforced in later films. This is a perception which Baker describes as being representative of a section of the loyalist community who understands their isolation from the world, knows “themselves as pariahs and have come to wear that pariahdom as a badge of principled defiance” (Baker 2004: 80). This is exemplified as the man slaps his girlfriend when she pleads with the gun-wielding Danny—who has surprised them by hiding in the backseat of their car—to let her go and claims she “wasn’t going to see him anymore anyway”. Hinting at the state collusion Danny would find out about at the end of the film and reflecting how cinema portrays collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and the security services as the ultimate transgression, the man goes on to explain that there is someone bigger that Danny wants. He is then asked how he did what he did at the ballroom and responds coldly, “It’s not that hard when you put your mind to it.” Becoming increasingly manic, he begins to encourage Danny to shoot him as he drives faster. Perhaps referring both to the current situation and the night at the ballroom—before Danny shoots him—he explains, “It’s easy, you just pull the trigger.” Danny then discovers that his new manager is “making payments” to a man who is ostensibly a member of the IRA. Now a cold-blooded killer himself, Danny doesn’t hesitate to kill the man as well. This swift execution, without drawing a distinction between him and the loyalist gunmen, has also resulted in many commentators reading the film as being equally critical of both violent republicanism and loyalism. The reaction by Dee, (Honor Heffernan) Danny’s fellow band member and love interest, also supports the claim that the film ultimately renounces all violence. She sees Danny now as being a different person and someone who makes her “feel unclean”. She also tells him at this time that “they were looking for you … them like you, only in uniform”. This suggests that she sees the police as equally responsible for the violence and ushers in the film’s final scene, where the Police Detective, Bonner (Donal McCann), is revealed as the loyalist gang’s ringleader. Bonner is even heard to mimic the loyalist gunmen at the beginning of the film as he refers to Danny as a “Bad … bad

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boy”. Hill’s claim that nothing is said about the violence depicted being politically motivated would perhaps be unfair were it not for Bonner’s partner, Detective Bloom’s interjection. Bloom (Ray McAnally) kills Bonner just as he is about to shoot Danny and thus, the film denies any systemic nature to security service corruption or collusion just as quickly as the question is raised. Reinforcing this idea that the security services are ultimately good, the film ends with Bloom stating, “I didn’t know.” In future depictions of loyalist paramilitaries their political allegiance would be more clearly identifiable, but the ruthlessness of the gunmen in the film would be a type of depiction that would dominate screen representations of loyalist paramilitaries, and unionism in general, in the years that followed. The film is also the first to depict loyalist paramilitary collusion with state security services, the type of which occurred in the Miami Showband killings, and hints at collusion being the ultimate transgression without depicting any systemic nature to the corruption.

Ascendancy (1983) Edward Bennett’s Ascendancy (Bennett, 1983) is a period drama set after the First World War that deals with unionist resistance to Home Rule and was released in cinemas in 1983. Like Maeve, the film was funded by the British Film Institute, however, partly owing to the involvement of Film Four, the film’s budget was significantly higher. The film was specifically financed through the state-funded BFI Production Fund that was managed by the British Film Institute and principally charged with backing work by new and uncommercial filmmakers (Brooke 2014). The film is in a similar vein to other ‘Big House’ Irish films that comment on Irish nationalism and use the Big House itself to embody colonial rule in Ireland, such as The Dawning (Knight, 1988) and Fools of Fortune (O’Connor, 1990).1 However, the fact that the film had such social and political resonance upon its release, its inclusion of depictions of Orangeism throughout and a portrayal of unionist leader, Edward Carson, means Ascendancy engages much more directly with unionist themes and unionist cultural identity. 1  The ‘Big House’ refers to the large homes of the ascendancy in Ireland and is a term often used to describe a genre of Irish fiction, particularly literature from the Irish gothic tradition, concerned with the anxieties of the Protestant landowning class in their decline, from the late eighteenth century.

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The plot revolves around Connie (Julie Covington), a Protestant woman and member of the British landowning aristocracy who lives in a stately home in the North of Ireland and before partition. Traumatised by her brother’s death at the Battle of the Somme during the First World War, Connie is partially paralysed, a psychosomatic symptom that causes her to be unable to raise her right arm. This trauma also causes her to be unable to process the violence that goes on around her and eventually leads to her muteness and refusal to eat. Her descent into madness is also triggered by an encounter with a British soldier, Lt. Ryder (Ian Charleson), whose reluctance to fight in Ireland makes her realise how sheltered she is to the realities of the Irish situation. Undeniably a meditation on Britain’s guilt over the tormented history of Ireland and an illustration of Ashis Nandy’s argument that colonialism was debilitating for the coloniser as well as for the colonised, Connie’s hunger striking at the film’s finale could be understood as her allying with the struggle for Irish Independence from Britain (Nandy 1988: 2). This understanding is supported by the fact that hunger strikes have been used throughout history by Irish republicanism as a means of political confrontation and to seek social redress. Furthermore, at the time of the release of Bennett’s film in 1983, Ireland was still reeling from the deaths a few years earlier of ten republican prisoners on hunger strike at the Maze prison. David McKittrick, referring to the province of Ulster, explains, “The crisis plunged the province into one of the worst convulsions it has experienced, putting the population through communal trauma and laying the basis for a deadly cycle of increased violence” (McKittrick 2006). Connie’s muteness can be seen as an indicator of her political allegiance as it represents another recurring concept in period dramas set in Ireland, that of national trauma being manifest within an individual. In typical Irish gothic fashion—a genre generally associated with the Anglican community in Ireland and emanating from a crisis of identity from within the community—the nation’s trauma is embodied within a disturbed woman, Connie.2 Her muteness is understood as the national trauma she embodies being so great and traumatic that it can never be articulated. In a foretelling at the beginning of the film, Connie explains this unhealthy ability to remember, but not vocalise when she states, “How long has it 2  Jarlath Killeen, in his work on this subject, describes one possible reason for the attractiveness of the Gothic for the Anglican community in Ireland is that it is a “genre peculiarly obsessed with questions of identity” (Killeen 2014: 34).

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been? Three years? Four? One hundred? It makes no difference. I remember everything. I keep it safe inside me.”3 Although Northern Irish unionists may view themselves as being represented by ideas of Britishness in the generally patriotic ‘heritage films’ which have long been a staple of the British film industry, as previously mentioned, unionists in Ireland have never been afforded the kind of portrayal enjoyed by other communities that identify as British. This would become particularly noticeable when comparing more contemporary depictions of unionism with typical ‘heritage films’. However, being a period drama itself, it is also interesting to consider how this theme is identifiable in Ascendancy. Highlighting the difference in films set in Ireland and Britain, Barton states: One of the most striking differences between the British and Irish of the Big House/period dramas is their representation of history and historical events. In the British films, most of them set in England, history functions as little more than background information and is seldom if ever problematised. The Irish films are about history and its legacy. The bearers of this legacy as well as its victims are the genre’s central, often hysterical female characters. (Barton 2004: 135)

In Ascendancy, unionism and aristocracy are intrinsically linked to Orangeism, and therefore presented at its most problematic, raising questions about colonialism and its present-day impact rarely explored in heritage films set in England. This is first apparent in the scene where a young man practices twirling a baton in the garden of the house underneath a Union flag hanging from a flagpole. The twirling of the baton is an act traditionally carried out by the person who leads the loyalist band procession. Diegetic loyalist band music accompanies the twirling and the person’s skill at the craft draws the attention of the admiring nurse (Susan Engel) who watches from a window and proclaims, “That’s a fine sight, isn’t it?” Less impressed, Connie solemnly remarks “Is it that time of year already?” A little later, Connie’s antipathy to unionist culture is more obviously displayed when her English father, Wintour (John Phillips), asks her what she thinks whilst proudly wearing the traditional Orange sash and looking at his reflection in a mirror. 3  This theme of a national guilt being the personal burden of young female members of the ascendancy and leading to muteness is also explored in Pat O’Connor’s Fools of Fortune (O’Connor, 1990).

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Connie: You look absolutely ridiculous. Wintour: I do wish you’d take more of an interest in the outside world, Connie. Connie: Why should I take an interest in grown men marching up and down like children? Wintour: Because it’s part of our tradition. Connie: Waving flags isn’t a tradition; it’s just a silly habit.

Connie goes on to claim that Wintour doesn’t really care for this unionist tradition, instead believing his support is born out of economic necessity. This is a claim supported moments later as he is seen sitting at a demonstration against the Home Rule Bill, a bill passed by Parliament intended to provide self-government for Ireland within the United Kingdom, immediately to the right of what is presumably the unionist political leader, Edward Carson (Liam O’Callaghan). Carson, a Dubliner, held several positions in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom, led unionist opposition to Home Rule and was instrumental in the creation of the Northern Ireland state. A well-dressed and bushy eye-browed Carson tells the working-class audience that have gathered to hear him: These men that come forward posing as the friends of labour care no more about labour than the man in the moon. The real insidious aim of their propaganda is to bring disunity among our people, to force on us the same bondage and slavery that we see being imposed in the rest of Ireland.

The crowd that has gathered respond warmly to the speech and enthusiastically yell the unionist slogan, “No Surrender”. The scene and the sequence that follows reveal the Orange institution’s ability to unite workers against left-wing elements to be a useful tool for Wintour to achieve his goal of defeating a dockyard strike in order to secure a lucrative deal with a group of German businessmen. This is a demonstration of a long-held belief that the Orange Order is useful and even necessary for the establishment to keep a fractious Protestant people of many different denominations together in the face of perceived Catholic unity. It is also a belief that is often understood by unionists themselves to be condescending and reinforcing a perception that working-class Orange Order members are generally just pawns of the establishment. The fact that the man who is seen to benefit from a united and influential Orange Order is English and of the landowning ascendancy takes on even more significance in this regard. Carson’s words can also be seen to incite violence as, in what is perhaps a

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reference to a sustained period of conflict in the city between 1920 and 1922 known as the “Belfast Pogrom”, sectarian trouble erupts between the nationalist and unionist dockworkers after Carson’s speech.4 Wintour later seeks a career in politics and this pursuit also reveals his true motivation for comprehensively opposing Home Rule to be economic in nature. When the proposition to stand for election is first put to him at a discussion at the dinner table in his home, Wintour makes it clear that he is a businessman, not a politician. Another man, presumably from the UUP, suggests that political unionism also shares this motivation when he responds by insisting, “That’s exactly the kind of men we need.” The calculated and sectarian nature of the Northern Ireland state’s creation is also discussed at this time. One of the men at the table explains to Wintour that it would be best not to seek to include the nine counties of Ulster in the new state, due to the large Catholic population in three of the counties: Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan. Man 1:

Look at the arithmetic; with six counties we can hold the line. With nine, they’ll out number us in a couple of generations. Man 2: At the rate they breed! Man 1: The point is those six have to be secure. Wintour: Frankly, it’s Belfast that concerns me.

Wintour’s interest in whatever keeps Belfast, the economic hub of Ireland at the time and the city where he owns a business that relies heavily on trade with Britain, in the United Kingdom further demonstrates an economic motivation. The fact that the six county state of Northern Ireland did materialise means the film can be seen to suggest that what is true of Wintour’s motivations is also true of those who determined the state should exist. Other arguments for the state’s existence such as the possible discrimination of Protestants in the largely Catholic, Irish state are presumably deemed revisionist in nature and not explored in the film. Later in the film, after being elected to Northern Ireland’s first parliament, Wintour is reserved and contemplative as he speaks to Connie whilst looking out her bedroom window at a gathered crowd of singing supporters. They can be heard singing the hymn associated with Edward Carson’s

4  For more on this period, see Robert Lynch’s “The People’s Protectors? The Irish Republican Army and the ‘Belfast Pogrom,’ 1920-1922”.

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unionist campaigns, ‘Our God, Our Help in Ages Past’, which includes the verse: Our God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Our shelter from the stormy blast, And out eternal home.5

The singing of this particular hymn along with later shouts of “No Surrender” and “Ulster Forever” can be seen to imply that they believe ownership of this new state has been bestowed onto Protestants. The sense of entitlement and privilege that this could foster and the possible reaction to it of the Catholic minority living within the new state seems lost on the people singing. However, this does not seem to be lost on Wintour who, prophesising the conflicts that would come, tells only the mute Connie, “Listen to them, they think they won the war. Can’t they see it’s only just the beginning?” Wintour’s soliloquy now suggests that he has not just put his own economic interest before peace and an end to the bloodshed but has knowingly done so. After a cathartic moment confessing this to his daughter he emerges outside to proudly greet his supporters with a wave below a banner that reads, “This we will maintain.” The film explores the impact the Battle of the Somme had on society and seeks to depict the horror of it, even using stock footage of the battle itself at the beginning of the film. This could be seen as endearing itself to a unionist audience who, owing to the fact that the 36th Ulster Division suffered 5000 casualties, almost half their number, consider the commemoration of the event intrinsic to their culture (McIntosh 1999: 14). On discovering that Connie’s brother has died in battle, Lt. Ryder knowingly asks, “Where was it? The Somme, like everybody else around here?” It could also be argued that due to Connie being mentally unstable, her republican political view is illegitimate. This might be true were it not for the tradition within literature of hysterical women revealing truths that would otherwise be hidden from society were it not for their unstable state of mind, a theme notable in publications such as Sheridan LeFanu’s 1872 novella, Carmella, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1892 short story, The Yellow Wallpaper. Therefore, the film can still be considered one of the 5  Gillian McIntosh claims “O God, Our Hope in Ages Past” was a hymn Carson always insisted should be sung at the beginning of his campaign meetings (McIntosh 1999: 50).

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most polemical of all the films deemed sympathetic to Irish nationalism. In this regard, Alexander Walker, referring to Ascendancy winning the prestigious Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival, describes the film as “an imperfect conjunction of a Return of the Soldier-type plot and a fashionable and historically inexact attempt to pin the blame for Ulster’s ‘Troubles’ on the Protestant ‘ascendancy’, which nevertheless took first prize at the 1983 Berlin Festival” (Walker 2005: 262). McIlroy also criticises the film for representing Ulster Protestants as fundamentally militaristic, even considering Orange traditional attire as a way the community is militarised. He states: To dress Protestants mainly in the uniforms of the RUC [Royal Ulster Constabulary] and the UDR is to strip them of their Irishness, to give them a transitory military identity that ties them to the Black and Tans. After all, it is easier to categorize a person in uniform, whether with an Orangeman’s bowler hat, white gloves and sash, or with the dark attire and grey armoured car of the RUC, bristling with machine guns, than to confront the Protestant civilian ideology. (McIlroy 1988: x)

Indeed, in Bennett’s film, the Protestant community is generally associated in some way with the military. When not dressed in military attire, they are depicted in the company of the military as evidenced by a scene where several civilian women with Ulster accents socialise with military personnel at Wintour’s garden party. In one conversation, the Protestant civilian ideology is nevertheless articulated when one woman, referring to Irish nationalists, discloses to Lt. Ryder, “Father says they’re holding raffles to see who gets the best land … after we’ve all been killed, I suppose. Let’s hope you get them first.” This articulating of a unionist perspective is also a moment in the film where a human dimension is most clearly afforded to a unionist character. The Protestant staff at the Wintour home are initially another example of Protestant civilians in the film until two staff members are seen carrying out a sectarian murder at night after which they cry “No Surrender”. The staff can also be seen as defenders of the military fortress that is the house, apparent from the barbed wire that surrounds it, a hoard of guns stored within it and the military personnel that frequent it. Mistrust of their Catholic colleagues also leads to their bullying of them and eventual hiding of glass in a bucket that causes the Catholic maid, Rose, to injure herself. Later in the film, the young man who works at the house becomes

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fully militarised when he joins the Ulster Volunteers, with an older worker commenting that he wishes “he was his age”, a remark that signals were he younger he would be joining the military force as well. Despite Ascendancy’s Irish nationalist sympathies being clear, unlike many other films sympathetic to the nationalist cause, Bennett’s film opts to focus on those of a unionist persuasion rather than nationalist. However, with the central protagonist, Connie, being deeply troubled by the violence going on around her to such an extent that she refuses to eat, the film follows in the tradition of British cinema that sees Ireland as a dark and tragic place outside the influence of Britain. John Hill explains that there is a tendency in cinema to regard violence in Ireland as “a manifestation of the Irish ‘national’ character” (Hill 1987: 147). In Bennett’s film, Wintour’s words support this understanding when he tells Connie, “How’d you like to go back to England for a while? To sanity?” Even the discerning Lt. Ryder is guilty of enforcing this understanding when he tells Connie, “We didn’t create this chaos. We inherited it. I’ll take you away from this place. You’ll get better.” However, Connie having the final words in the film, communicated through a note she has written, which she uses to contradict the two men in her life ultimately suggests that the film is aware of this theme in British cinema and wishes to ameliorate it. The note states: I am beginning to understand what has been happening in the world around me. I am beginning to understand the part that you and I have played in it. I do not know if I can bear it. One thought overwhelms me … that this horror goes on and on forever.

The film then ends on an allegorical and deeply affecting image of Connie being force-fed. As well as being a reminder of the 1909 suffragette hunger strikes and force feeding, this can again be seen as an example of the film commenting on the present with the hunger striking and brutal force feeding—in association with Connie’s final words in the film—being an observation on the recent republican hunger strikes in the Maze prison.

Cal (1984) Cal (O’Connor, 1984) is a 1984 film directed by Irish director Pat O’Connor and produced by English producer, David Puttnam and his production company, Enigma Films. Puttnam’s involvement means Cal

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can be seen as a watershed moment in the history of Irish cinema and a precursor to what was to come as Ireland began to attract the attention of British and American producers and film financers. As such, the film also had quite a sizeable budget of £3.5 million and was the official Irish entry in the 1984 Cannes Film Festival. Upon seeing O’Connor’s film adaption of Irish writer, William Trevor’s The Ballroom of Romance (O’Connor, 1982) Puttnam was convinced that he could develop character well enough to adapt another Irish writer, Bernard MacLaverty’s 1983 novella for the screen with MacLaverty himself writing the screenplay. The film was well received with Helen Mirren winning the Cannes Best Actress Award. Mirren plays Marcella, the Catholic wife of a murdered Protestant police officer who falls in love with Cal (John Lynch), an IRA man whom she is unaware is complicit in the killing. Like so many films included in this research Cal is very much from a nationalist perspective; MacLaverty himself goes as far as to state that the story is “more about Catholicism than it is about the Troubles” (Davis 2018: 81). Indeed, in the film, Cal is troubled with guilt from participating in the murder and at times seeks a form of penance. With the religious undertones and symbolism present in both the novel and the film, MacLaverty subverts the traditional strain in Irish republicanism, mirrored by the hunger strike in the Maze prison a few years before the novel was published, that has fused elements of the Catholic redemptive suffering of Christ into its narrative. However, mainly due to Cal’s family home being in an almost exclusively Protestant estate where he and his father, Shamie (Donal McCann) are subject to intimidation, threats and eventual expulsion, unionism does feature significantly. From the beginning, their unionist neighbours are presented as being oppressive and hostile, and this is most obviously identified in a scene where a Twelfth of July Orange Order parade passes outside Cal and Shamie’s house. Shamie’s angry response to the parade and its proximity to his house demonstrates the level of alienation and intimidation they experience. Cal walks through the parade on his way home from work and, as in Murphy and Davies’ Maeve, his casual attire marks him out against the parade’s participants who are dressed in suits and Orange Order regalia. On his return home he is followed in the door by his father who has returned from work, both have passed loyalist territorial markings in the form of bunting, flags and murals. Upon hearing the intrusive music—at this moment it is simply incessant drumming reminiscent of gunfire—Shamie automatically interprets it as him being forced out of his

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home and proclaims defiantly, “No Protestant git is going to drive me out, they’ll have to kill me first.” He doesn’t seem to draw a distinction between the Orange Order parade and the loyalists’ intent on forcing him out of the house encountered later in the film. Shamie’s reaction can be seen to support the understanding of the Orange Order as being fundamentally supremacist and triumphalist. The relentless and primitive music depicted is also sharply contrasted with the relaxing music Cal listens to and later plays on his guitar as he perhaps attempts a form of escapism in the sequences that follow. Later, just before Cal receives a threatening note through the letterbox from the UVF, he watches a royal ceremony on the television; these subtle inclusions suggest that, as with the problems facing Maeve’s family in Maeve, there is a systemic nature to the problems Cal and Shamie face. However, subtlety is perhaps negated in another scene when Cal is viciously attacked on his way home by a group of young men, one of whom wears a Union flag jumper. Cyril Dunlop (Ray McAnally), who led the Orange parade outside Cal and Shamie’s home, later employs Cal on his farm in an act that goes some way to challenging the perception given earlier of the Orange Order as being fundamentally bigoted and supremacist. However, at times when alone with Cal in his car, he delivers lines that suggest he is sectarian; he tells Cal, “I haven’t got anything against Catholics as such, it’s the religion I hate.” Giving credence to Shamie’s earlier accusation that he is a bigot, he also states on one occasion, “Sometimes I think Hitler had the right idea.” Stickers of a Union flag and another that depicts William of Orange on a horse are visible in the windscreen of Cyril’s car on the two separate occasions that these remarks are made. This combination of mise-en-­ scène, cinematography and dialogue is an example of the film using a specific filmic device to subtly link unionism to bigotry and intolerance. The most heinous act committed by unionists in the film occurs when Cal returns home to find loyalists have succeeded in burning Shamie out of his house. However, it is also at this time that another challenge to the unfavourable perception of unionists is identified; ostensibly a Protestant neighbour, who, witnessing the sectarian violence and destruction, comforts Shamie as he sits on the street and confides tearfully in Cal that she is ashamed. Similarly, Cyril, changing tact in the immediate aftermath of this event, concedes that rather than the conflict being simply militant Irish republicanism versus the forces of law and order there are “bad bastards on both sides”.

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McIlroy refutes the criticism of the film and the book that emerged from some quarters that it offers no specific political perspective and challenges this perception by claiming that because Cal’s father’s house is fire-­ bombed by Protestants and he is beaten on several different occasions by either loyalists or the security services, there is an implicit bias in the film against the unionist community. He also suggests that the film and the book are implicitly biased on another level and that this is essentially due to the widowed Marcella, despite living in the Protestant home, being a Catholic. He explains that because Marcella is discontented in her marriage to her Protestant policeman husband and unhappy in her subsequent life with Robert’s Protestant family, the bias is even more telling. He states: What this close reading of the film’s events suggest is a Catholic narrative voice in search of a Catholic reader. In itself, this emphasis is not a bad thing, but when combined with the political thriller genre and a Northern Irish setting, a film director can unintentionally strike very uneven and damaging chords in the viewer. (McIlroy 1988: 73)

When specifically analysing the representation of the IRA and not Irish nationalism in general, they are found to not be represented positively either. McLoone contends that Cal is one of a number of films that have shown IRA violence to be ultimately self-defeating, pointless and liable to initiate a cycle of events that spin out of control. He states: In this worldview, romantic love is impossible, family relationships are destroyed and the whole community is ripped asunder. In these films, violence is often seen as the workings of fate, a tragic fault in the Irish themselves, which is as much a part of the Irish environment as the changeable weather and the awe-inspiring scenery. (McLoone 2008: 195)

McIlroy himself agrees with this when he states, “The brutal representation of the gunman Crilly, who actually murders the RUC man while Cal assists, conveys the sense that the IRA leadership easily manipulates young and violent men who are little more than gangsters” (McIlroy 2006: 83). It is certainly true that, with the exception of Cal, the IRA is presented as remorseless cold-blooded killers. The character Crilly (Stevan Rimkus) is the best example of this as from the very beginning of the film he is seen killing the police officer in cold blood as he opens his front door, then shooting his elderly father who, as the film progresses, can be seen to

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never fully recover. Crilly doesn’t seem to be remorseful in any way for his actions and in fact, he can be seen to become more extreme and unhinged, planting a bomb in a bookstore and threatening Cal when he articulates his desire to leave the movement. The IRA leadership, represented in the film by the character Skeffington (John Kavanagh), is also depicted as being manipulative idealists concerned little with the woes of everyday people and seemingly revelling in the turmoil that surrounds them. Skeffington, a respected teacher who is thought of highly by Shamie, is also a calculating character that comes from a wealthy rural background. His mannerisms are much more reminiscent of a Bond villain than the typical IRA leader at this time who, in reality, overwhelming came from a working-class background. When Skeffington is killed by the British Army, the film draws on the tradition within Republicanism of blood sacrifice but markedly omits any lingering shots or other techniques used to depict those killed and captured as martyrs in the way later films would, such as Michael Collins (Jordan, 1996), Some Mother’s Son (George, 1996), The Devil’s Own (Pakula, 1997) and The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Loach, 2005). Therefore, it could be said that the film offers an unfavourable view of both loyalist and republican paramilitarism. Nevertheless, it will become difficult to ignore how frequently nationalist themes and nationalist protagonists appear in the films that follow, and how so many films, like Cal, can be described as having what McIlroy describes as a ‘Catholic narrative voice in search of a Catholic reader’. Perhaps owing to MacLaverty writing both the novella and the screenplay, the film closely resembles the original source material. It is also interesting how McIlroy’s claim of bias includes both reference to the film and the novella. This is the first film analysed where it can be suggested that it is not just the film that displays bias but the original source material as well. This supports the claim that the deficit is not confined to cinema and may be a more general phenomenon, evident across a multitude of storytelling mediums.

No Surrender (1985) No Surrender (Smith, 1985) was released in cinemas in 1985 and funded partly by Film Four and by the National Film Finance Council (NFFC) which was wound up shortly after the film was produced. The film exemplifies Film Four’s remit at the time which was to be committed

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to making indigenous British productions, especially original screenplays on contemporary social and political issues (Hill 1999: 56). The NFFC had a remit of its own which No Surrender can be seen to have met as well. Mamoun Hassan of the NFFC—and who also produced the film—explains that the corporation’s agenda was always to “change the climate, change the taste” and that it therefore took funding decisions on risky projects— including No Surrender—that other funders wouldn’t touch (Macnab 2011). Directed by Peter Smith and written by Alan Bleasdale who previously created the popular television show, The Boys From the Blackstuff (1980-1982), the film can also be seen to have ambitions to challenge conventions. Bleasdale explains: I went to the National Film Finance Corporation and told them I was never going to write Star Wars or Rambo Revisited or anything like that, so I just went ahead and wrote the film I wanted to write … I can’t approach the typewriter with anything but passion. I’m not going to be one of these guys who in fifty years time will have his collected essays and letters published, because I haven’t got any. I can only write when there’s real passion involved. You may say it’s bleak but these are bleak times we’re living in. I think with this film I’ve tried to push it further than ever before. (Johnston 1986)

The film is a surreal black comedy that explores the prejudices rife in society at the time; Walker explains that the film is “a tale of Catholics and Protestants whose antagonism is only moderated by the fact that all of them are pensioners” (Walker 2005: 222). As such, although set in Liverpool, Northern Irish themes feature significantly; referring to the profusion of Irish people and Irish culture in the city, critic Trevor Johnston jokes, “No Surrender is a return to the capital of Ireland, Liverpool.” However, unusually for the time, the Troubles and sectarian tension— although depicted bleakly—are still presented with an element of humour more commonly found in later post-Good Friday Agreement films when the genre of the ‘Troubles comedy’ comes to the fore. The film also stars three acclaimed Irish actors, Mark Mulholland as a loyalist gunman called Norman, Ray McAnally as an ex-loyalist paramilitary member called Billy McCracken and James Ellis as a blind Catholic boxer in fancy dress called Paddy Burke. The name, No Surrender, is an interesting title given the term’s association with unionism; initially, a battle cry of the defenders of the Siege of Derry in 1689 during the Williamite War in Ireland, the motto, “No

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Surrender” continued to be used as an expression of unionist opposition to Catholic rule and a united Ireland. The phrase can still be heard today and seen on loyalist murals. The favouring of the name over the subtitle and perhaps more appropriate title, A Normal Night Out … These Days, lends a satirical gravitas harmonious with the NFFC and Film Four remit. Immediately establishing the political nature of the comedy, the film also opens on Norman, a boorish on the run loyalist gunman who, moments into the film, can be heard to shout “No Surrender” along with another loyalist motto “For God and Ulster”. These battle cries are shouted at Billy, who Norman refers to as ‘Billy the Beast’, in an attempt to appeal to his paramilitary past so as he will help him evade the law. However, Billy quickly and emphatically confirms that he is no longer interested in violence by saying “I surrender. In fact, I give up”. An almost sacrilegious response within militant loyalism, this prompts Norman to quickly change tact and threaten Norman’s family: Norman: Awful shame about that daughter … made a fool of herself and you. Whirlwind romance. A sudden marriage to a Catholic, Billy. A hard Catholic, a strong Catholic. One troublesome Catholic. Billy: I know, but she’s happy. Norman: Well a whole lot of others aren’t. Billy: Look Norman, my father died a pauper in this city. Starved out of our own country to come and starve here. He had nothing to give me, my Dad. But he left me three things when he died. My religion, my politics and my football team. All true blue and it’s still the same. I still have it all. I will never talk to the Catholic boy. I won’t have anything to do with him. But the violence of it all has left me. Norman: We have her address, Billy. I can remember the name and the road without having to go to my files. See, I told you I kept in touch.

Alluding to the fact that the Catholic man Billy’s daughter has married is strong and troublesome and therefore a threat only slightly diminishes the inherent bigotry implied by Norman’s comments. Despite passionately affirming his belonging to a definition of loyalism that does not include violence, Billy’s refusal at this time to talk to his son-in-law because of his religion also presents him as bigoted. The rest of the plot revolves around Billy trying to hide Norman from the authorities whilst also leading a group of old-age pensioners who belong to the local ‘Twelfth of July Memorial Hall’ to a night out at the Charleston Club for New Year’s Eve celebrations. Meanwhile, the new

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manager of the Charleston Club (Michael Angelis) realises that the club is run by an organised crime syndicate and that the previous manager – in an attempt to get one over on the club’s owners – has hired it out to a group of hard-line Irish nationalist senior citizens as well as the membership of Billy’s Twelfth of July Memorial Hall. Furthermore, the two parties are later joined by another group of senior citizens who have intellectual disabilities. Norman and Billy’s tumultuous relationship reaches a crescendo when Billy strangles Norman to death in the club’s toilets after Norman threatens his daughter once too often. A band also arrive at this time playing loyalist music with instruments that they were previously prohibited from bringing into the club. This causes a mass brawl that spills over into the toilets and leads to the discovery of Norman’s body. However, by midnight the police arrive and things calm down. Billy returns to the others from the Twelfth of July Memorial Hall who are singing sectarian songs with one line being, “We are the sons of Billy and to hell with popery”. Significantly, however, Billy does not sing and instead leaves the club and goes home. The film ends on a positive note with Billy ringing his Catholic son-in-law and wishing him a Happy New Year. Billy can ultimately be seen to be a somewhat positive representation of unionism. He initially articulates a loyalist identity that is confined solely to the non-violent realms of religion, politics and football. He also initially refuses to fight the blind Catholic boxer Paddy outside the club (although it is unclear at this point whether this is simply to avoid drawing unwanted attention to the fugitive, Norman) and the prejudices he does express at times in the film can be seen to be corrected as his character arc develops, culminating in his refusal to sing along with the sectarian song and his acceptance of his daughter’s Catholic husband. However, a bias can still be detected as although all representatives of the unionist and nationalist position are depicted—like almost everyone in the film—as prejudiced in some way, those representing unionism are depicted as being more elderly and antiquated. A youthful asserter of the nationalist position can be identified in the form of a young Liverpool woman who works at the Charleston Club and who hates the Orange Order and justifies the bad behaviour of the nationalists on account of them being oppressed. On finding out that the Twelfth of July Memorial Hall are attending the club she complains to the manager, “We’ve got the sodden Orange Lodge in tonight. I hate the Orange Lodge, do you? They all do in our house. It runs in the family. Well I know

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who will be getting fed last tonight.” As the night progresses, she also attempts to drown out the noise of the loyalist music by taking to the stage and singing. In contrast, asserters of the unionist position are confined to the aged members of the Twelfth of July Memorial Hall and a loyalist gunman who is a pensioner himself. Furthermore, the scenes set in the memorial hall itself are telling; lots of empty seats and Billy’s complaints that some of the people who are there only show up for a free night out suggest a membership that is in decline. This is also supported by the fact an elderly women en route to the hall—upon being told where her husband was taking her—complains that she hates the Orange Lodge more than “Help the Aged”. In fact, agedness is a theme that features prominently in the film and more often than not, it is in relation to unionism. In a scene where Billy tells Norman that he can accompany him to the Charleston Club, Norman protests, “What? On a pissin’ pensioners outing?” Referring to Norman being elderly himself, Billy responds, “Well, you’ll not be out of place, will you?” and “You can sing all the old songs.” Shortly after this interaction, Billy addresses the audience in the memorial hall and introduces himself not only as a former Grand Master of the lodge but also, somewhat inexplicably, as a pensioner. On occasion, No Surrender reinforces stereotypes that exist already and on other occasions it can be seen to introduce portrayals that would become commonplace. Also, the depiction of the loyalist gunman as a psychotic, uncontrollable individual that must be killed by one of his own is a type of portrayal that would be apparent in depictions of unionism in the years that followed. Like most British productions, the film uses Ireland and the Troubles as a lens to look at England and English society. Smith’s film is also mostly reluctant to depict sectarianism and violence as being politically motivated. Instead, No Surrender firmly depicts Ireland as an inherently violent place and home to primitive people whose fate is wholly outside the control of Britain, even when they are located in mainland Britain. McLoone explains that British films have tended to portray the violence as essentially pathological – the fault of the Irish themselves. This tragic flaw in the Irish is the result of either their own innate proclivities, the working of fate or the effects of nature and environment on the Irish psyche. The result is that Britain is absolved from any responsibility for the violence and the socio-cultural roots are denied. Even Irish films that have touched on the topic, such as Neil Jordan’s Angel and

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Pat O’Connor’s Cal have tended to reinforce this tradition of representation. (McLoone 2006: 61)

No Surrender largely depicts the Irish in this manner. The only way it could be argued that Smith’s film differs from other British films in this regard is perhaps that more of a focus is placed on unionism and that unionists are included in depictions of the tragic and violent Irish.

Conclusion As a reflection of the media in general, cinema largely ignored the Troubles before the 1981 hunger strike. The worldwide media attention that the hunger strike garnered could be understood to have led filmmakers to believe that the Troubles, and a more in-depth, nuanced approach to Northern Ireland, would be suitable for exploration in cinema given the increased interest in the conflict. In fact, in the case of Ascendancy and Cal, the films can even be seen to comment—albeit metaphorically—on the hunger strike. This more in-depth, nuanced approach within British cinema was also encouraged by the remit of the British Film Institute, NFFC and Film Four. The remit of a fledgling Film Four was particularly significant as its involvement in so many of the films analysed after the company was created in 1982 suggests it is a key reason for the emergence of unionist representation at this time. In Ireland, the Irish Film Board, established in 1980, can be seen to have had an influence as well given it pushed to radically change expectations of what national cinema meant in Ireland and provided funding opportunities, often in association with funding sources in Britain, for the indigenous New Irish Cinema movement. This movement, which coincidentally had become established at this time heralded in a move towards an exploration of societal problems and national identity that had previously not been seen in Irish cinema. This made unionism appropriate for exploration in film for the first time in the history of the state. Furthermore, the complexity that comes with the inclusion of unionists and complicated unionist identities no longer proved problematic and, in fact, its inherent complexity and what its inclusion said about national identity meant it could be seen to be valued. In North American productions this more in-depth, nuanced approach to Ireland and the Troubles after the hunger strike typically manifested a little later in troubled republicans emerging as protagonists; in these films unionists were omitted almost entirely. Although British and Irish cinema

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can be seen to prioritise Irish nationalist themes and perspectives during this time as well, perhaps owing to Britain and Ireland’s closer proximity to the conflict, unionism isn’t omitted in the same way. However, the types of representations produced generally portray unionists as inherently violent, bigoted and militarised with deference shown to them in some way by an oppressive state. Although often depicted as a marginalised community, moments when characters can be seen to be relatable and a human dimension is afforded them are few and fleeting. Orange culture is also generally presented as hostile, declining, fundamentally conservative and a convenient tool for the establishment to manipulate. Specific filmic devices are even used at times to reinforce some of these ideas as exemplified by both Maeve and Cal’s use of cinematography and mise-en-scène, specifically the placement of unionist symbolism in the films. Furthermore, an analysis of casting decisions shows that unionists are commonly cast as elderly and male, further depicting the community as masculine, conservative and in decline. This is exemplified by the casting of an elderly Mark Mulholland and, on several occasions, Ray McAnally as unionists. A contrast can be drawn in this regard with the casting of youthful actors such as Mary Jackson and John Lynch as Irish nationalists. In particular, Jackson’s sexuality in Maeve is displayed prominently; this is most notable in a scene involving Jackson where full-frontal nudity is shown. Helen Mirren’s performance functions similarly in Cal, however, this is complicated somewhat by the fact that despite her being a Catholic, there is nothing to suggest that she is a nationalist. Also, in The Long Good Friday (Mackenzie, 1980), a film that has one of the most favourable depictions of the IRA in British Cinema, years before his turn as James Bond, a young Pierce Brosnan plays a suave and unerring IRA gunman. This phenomenon would be exacerbated in later years when youthful Hollywood stars, Mickey Rourke, Brad Pitt, Richard Gere, Natascha McElhone, Michael Fassbender and Rose McGowan would all play members of the IRA.6

References Baker, Stephen. 2004. Vampire Troubles: Loyalism and Resurrection Man. In: Keeping It Real: Irish Film and Television. London: Wallflower Press. ———. 2015. Loyalism on Film and Out of Context. In: The Contested Identities of Ulster Protestants. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 6  Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford were named People Magazine’s “Sexiest Couple Alive” in 1993 and Brad Pitt was named People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” in 1995.

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Barton, Ruth. 2004. Irish National Cinema. London: Routledge. BBC. 2020. Miami Showband: Files delay 'appalling' says judge. BBC. Available: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-­northern-­ireland-­51242372. Accessed 5 October 2022. Brooke, Michael. 2014. How the BFI tried to create an alternative British art cinema. Screenonline archive. Available: http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/ id/1348538/. Accessed 5 October 2022. Davis, Lanta. 2018. Redemptive Suffering in the Isenheim Altarpiece and Bernard MacLaverty's Cal. New Hibernia Review 22: 81–95. Farrell, Michael. 1980. Northern Ireland: The Orange State. 2nd ed. London: Pluto Press. Hill, John. 1987. Images of Violence. In: Cinema and Ireland. Kent: Biddles. ———. 1999. British Cinema in the 1980s. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2006. Cinema and Northern Ireland. London: British Film Institute. Holland, Jack. 1999. The American connection: U.S. guns, money and influence in Northern Ireland. 3rd ed. California: Roberts Rinehart. Johnston, Trevor. 1986. Bleasdale: Beyond the Blackstuff. The List archive. Available: https://archive.list.co.uk/the-­list/1986-­05-­30/8/. Accessed 5 October 2022. Jordan, Richard Lawrence. 2018. Paisleyism and Civil Rights. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Killeen, Jarlath. 2014. The Emergence of Irish Gothic Fiction: History, Origins, Theories. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Liddy, Susan. 2020. Women in the Irish Film Industry. Cork: Cork University Press. Lynch, Robert. 2008. The People’s Protectors? The Irish Republican Army and the “Belfast Pogrom,” 1920-1922. Journal of British Studies 47: 375–391. Macnab, Geoffrey. 2011. Sight and Sound. 21 (9), 87. McIlroy, Brian. 1988. Irish Cinema: An Illustrated History. Dublin: Livia Press. ———. 2001. Shooting to Kill: Filmmaking and the 'Troubles' in Northern Ireland. 2nd ed. Richmond, B.C.: Steveston Press. ———. 2006. The Repression of communities: Visual Representations of Northern Ireland during the Thatcher Years. In: Fires were Started: British Cinema and Thatcherism. London: Wallflower Press. McIntosh, Gillian. 1999. The Force of Culture: Unionist Identities in Twentieth Century Ireland. Cork: Cork University Press. McKittrick, David. 2006. Remembering Bobby Sands. The Independent. Available: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-­britain/ remembering-­bobby-­sands-­6101872.html. Accessed 5 October 2022. McLoone, Martin. 1996. Broadcasting in a Divided Community: Seventy years of the BBC in Northern Ireland. Belfast: The Institute of Irish Studies. ———. 2006. Irish Film: The Emergence of a Contemporary Cinema. 2nd ed. London: British Film Institute.

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———. 2008. Representing the Unionists. In: Film, Media and Popular Culture in Ireland: Cityscapes, Landscapes, Soundscapes. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. Nandy, Ashis. 1988. The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. O'Brien, Harvey. 2006. The Identity of an Irish Cinema. Available: http://www. ifi.ie/downloads/history.pdf. Accessed 5 October 2022. Pettitt, Lance. 2020. Pat Murphy: Portrait of an artist as a filmmaker. In: Women in the Irish Film Industry: Stories and Storytellers. Cork: Cork University Press. Scarlatta, Jessica. 2013. Rethinking Occupied Ireland: Gender and Incarceration in Contemporary Irish Film. New York: Syracuse University Press. Sullivan, Megan. 1999. Interviews with Irish Women Filmmakers. CAIN Archive. Available: https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/women/sullivan99.htm. Accessed 5 October 2022. Walker, Alexander. 2005. National Heroes: British Cinema in the 70s and 80s. 2nd ed. London: Orion Books Ltd.

CHAPTER 3

The Rural and the Repressed: Unionists in December Bride (1991) and This Is the Sea (1997)

Despite being set almost a century apart, two films released in the 1990s, Thaddeus O’Sullivan’s December Bride (O’Sullivan, 1991) and Mary McGuckian’s This Is the Sea (McGuckian, 1997), explore life in rural Ulster as part of devout conservative Protestant communities. Both films also concentrate on repressed, free-spirited female protagonists who must break from tradition, religious norms and their overbearing communities to achieve fulfilment. In December Bride, the characters are identified as being unionist by an engagement with expressions of cultural identity whereas in This Is the Sea the characters are identified as being unionist through brief sequences of more explicit political expression. However, both, in their own way, allude to the complexity of the unionist identity and are therefore amongst the most unique, interesting and nuanced cinematic depictions of the community.

The Unionists Disappear As mentioned in the previous chapter, the frequency of unionist representation in cinema would decrease drastically in the years after 1985. In fact, except for O’Sullivan’s December Bride, almost a decade would pass after the release of Peter Smith’s No Surrender (Smith, 1985) before unionism was represented significantly again. The common perception that there is generally a cinematic deficit in films about the Troubles concerning the unionist community being depicted less frequently than the nationalist © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Gallagher, Screening Ulster, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23436-1_3

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community can be found to be particularly true during this barren period for unionist representation. The absence during this decade is also compounded by the fact the IRA begins to be depicted prominently in Hollywood productions partly owing to North America’s increased interest in the Troubles after the 1981 Irish republican hunger strike in the Maze prison. Despite the IRA and the Troubles featuring significantly in Hollywood productions, unionism is omitted entirely. This is exemplified in films such as A Prayer for the Dying (Hodges, 1987), Patriot Games (Noyce, 1992), The Crying Game (Jordan, 1992), In the Name of the Father (Sheridan, 1993) and Blown Away (Hopkins, 1994). Hollywood cinema’s reluctance to portray unionism could be seen as being born out of a fear it would complicate the dominant and simplistic narrative in US productions that the conflict in Ireland was solely a conflict between Ireland and Britain. This is not to say that Hollywood films portray republicanism favourably in all instances and, in fact, in both Patriot Games and Blown Away the sadistic villains are presented as being Irish republicans. However, even in these films a concerted effort is made to make clear that these characters are bad eggs in what would otherwise be ostensibly a legitimate, moral and oppressed Irish republican movement. Although some might argue that representations of republicanism are not overly favourable as a result, it is still a type of portrayal that has never been afforded to unionists. A reason for the cinematic deficit during this period was the closure of the National Film Finance Corporation (NFFC) in 1985 and the Irish Film Board in 1987, two organisations involved significantly in the funding of the films examined in the previous chapter. (Somewhat tellingly, December Bride was funded by Film Four, one of the only funders of the films looked at previously still in business in 1991.) The NFFC had a remit to take chances on risky British film productions and was abolished by the United Kingdom’s 1985 Film Act. In Ireland, the Irish Film Board had pushed to radically change expectations of what national cinema meant and was abolished in 1987 by an Irish government that prioritised immediate profit over the maintenance of a culturally engaged national cinema. However, even before the Irish Film Board’s abolition, mirroring a debate that would be played out in the years to come at the highest levels of film policy-making in Ireland, Irish filmmakers were, broadly speaking, split into two camps. Lance Pettitt explains:

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There were those who insisted that the primary aim of state assistance should be to fund a variety of modestly-budgeted projects that critically explored Irish society and history and challenged artistic and cultural norms, including previous cinematic representations of Ireland. Others felt that Ireland’s contemporary life would be best served by fewer, big budget, commercial films employing hard-hitting social realism that would attract both home and foreign audiences. (Pettitt 2000: 39)

The winding up of the Irish Film Board resulted in less finance for local Irish filmmakers and a vacuum that would be filled by major Hollywood productions that availed of government incentives through the tax concessions in the Republic of Ireland’s 1987 Finance Act. Kevin Rockett explains that the post-1987 film environment in Ireland witnessed “the restoration of the ascendancy of the industrial model for film production over a culturally engaged, critical cinema in Ireland” (Rockett 1994: 127). The closure of both these funding bodies can be seen to have significantly reduced the likelihood of nuanced and realistic depictions of Ireland featuring in cinema and, therefore, also unionist characters and themes. The Irish Film Board was reinstated in 1993 by Michael D. Higgins, the then-­ Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, but having now been influenced by the commercial and critical success of several externally funded Irish films, specifically My Left Foot (Sheridan, 1989) and The Crying Game (Jordan, 1992), the remit wasn’t quite the same; in fact, policy for the reinstated Irish Film Board often struggled to balance industry based and cultural models. This decrease in unionist representation in film would coincide with a renewed effort in Northern Ireland to combat the downturn in British film production in the mid-1980s. The Independent Film, Video and Photography Association created momentum to commission a study, called Fast Forward (1988), which examined the audio-visual infrastructure in relation to Britain and Ireland. Following the recommendations of the report, the Northern Ireland Film Council (NIFC) was set up in 1989 to encourage the development of film, television and video in the region. The NIFC would eventually go on to attract state finance from the department of education and in 1992 another report recommended more support for film via a revamped Northern Ireland Arts Council (Pettitt 2000: 40). One film that exemplified the cinematic deficit at this time was the English director Ken Loach’s Hidden Agenda (Loach, 1990). The film

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was released in cinemas in 1990 and was the first of several films by the director that have been set in Ireland. Production of the film was initially set up at David Puttnam’s Columbia Pictures in 1987; as previously mentioned, Puttnam was also instrumental in bringing Cal to cinema screens in 1984. However, the British production company, Hemdale Film Corporation, were the eventual producers of the film. The brief depiction of unionism seen in Hidden Agenda served merely to highlight the absence since, despite being set in Belfast (a majority unionist city at the time), unionism is only seen once and in the form of a Twelfth Orange parade. Although not commented upon directly, the setting for this display of rich political culture is fitting given what has been discussed earlier regarding unionists being proficient at communicating unionist culture and identity within public spaces despite their failings through the medium of cinema. A film exemplifying the cinematic deficit whilst also depicting a city centre dominated by parading unionists can also be seen to paradoxically reflect this phenomenon. Viewing the parade from an upstairs window at the start of the film, the procession is presented as being so intimidating to an American civil rights lawyer (Brad Dourif) that he remarks, “Frightening”. His colleague (Frances McDormand) responds by remarking, “Tribal rites.” Furthermore, the rest of the film—largely due to the complete absence of unionists—does nothing to challenge this perception nor does it comment on any Irish nationalist expressions of ‘Tribal rites’. One could argue that due to the film being about the British state’s shoot-to-kill policy which affected only republicans and Loach’s predilection with critiquing the state perhaps the exclusion can be understood. However, the omission of a unionist voice perhaps also is not a surprise given Loach has occasionally displayed his Irish republican sympathies passionately both on and off screen. Loach’s personal views in this regard have contributed to the perception that cinema is generally hostile to unionism. In 2006, his depiction of the notoriously brutal ‘Black and Tans’ during the Irish War of Independence in the Palme D’Or winning, The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Loach, 2006) resulted in a tirade of abuse by the British press. At this time, in an article in Daily Ireland, Loach drew parallels between Britain’s involvement in Ireland and the invasion of Iraq and claimed the “unionist veto on change must be removed” (Hall 2006). This phrase is derived from the republican maxim, “Break the loyalist veto”, although, at the time Loach used the term, Sinn Féin’s revising of approach and support for the Good Friday Agreement meant his view could be seen to be more extreme than Sinn Féin’s, a

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political party which was once the political wing of the Provisional IRA.1 Speaking to The Irish Times in 2019, Loach also called the century-old partition a historical wrong and stated: It was divided at the command of people like Churchill to ensure that it stayed in the British Empire. We put in this crinkly border to maintain a majority for unionists. Ireland is one geographic unit [. . .] What’s Britain doing owning part of Ireland? It’s been held at the point of a gun for most of those 100 years. (Clarke 2019)

Like The Wind That Shakes the Barley, his earlier film also received criticism from the British establishment but, as is generally the case, this had nothing to do with a lack of unionist representation and everything to do with a critical portrayal of the British state. Despite Loach’s position on the ‘Irish question’ being identifiable in the film’s plot as well, Hidden Agenda can ultimately be seen to follow in the tradition of films like No Surrender as Ireland is again used as a lens to look at Britain. This is exemplified in the film’s plot that starts as a commentary on the Stalker inquiry (an investigation into RUC shootings of suspected members of the Provisional IRA) but quickly becomes an exploration of corruption at the highest levels of the British government.

Ulster Says No One of the most significant events of the Troubles occurred in 1984 when the Provisional IRA attempted to kill British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by bombing a hotel in Brighton where the annual Conservative Party conference was taking place. Thatcher escaped injury but five people including the Conservative MP, Anthony Berry, were killed. The wife of Government Minister Norman Tebbit was also left crippled. The following year, the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which aimed to bring an end to the conflict in Ireland, was signed by both the British and Irish states. British military intelligence informed Thatcher that she could not take the IRA head-on and the likelihood of never-ending violence persuaded her to seek a political solution to the Troubles. It is also believed that pressure from 1  Loach is not alone in being a director who holds strong Irish republican views; legendary Hollywood director John Ford is believed to have had strong republican sympathies and Tim Pat Coogan has even claimed, in Wherever Green is Worn: The Story of the Irish Diaspora, that he contributed money to the IRA (Coogan 2001: 353).

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the United States and a desire not to risk the nation’s ‘special relationship’ she had forged with US President, Ronald Regan, was another factor. It is even claimed that a number of years after the signing of the agreement, she regretfully conceded, “It was the Americans that made me do it” (Kelly 2016). After she infamously rejected all three proposals put forward by the New Ireland Forum in 1984, Irish-American politicians in Washington—led by the speaker of the House of Representatives, Tipp O’Neill—had been intensely lobbying Reagan’s administration in an attempt to persuade Thatcher to allow Dublin a role in Northern Irish affairs. The treaty gave the government in the Republic of Ireland an advisory role in Northern Ireland’s government while confirming that there would be no change in the constitutional position of Northern Ireland unless a majority of its people agreed to leave the United Kingdom. It also set out conditions for the establishment of a devolved government. The agreement was supported by the House of Commons where it was approved by a majority of 426—the biggest of Thatcher’s premiership—but bitterly rejected by unionists in Northern Ireland. Angry at the Republic of Ireland being given a role in the governance of Northern Ireland for the first time, both the UUP and DUP led protests against the agreement. Protests included mass rallies, civil disobedience and the mass resignation by all Unionist MPs from the House of Commons. 400,000 signatures were gathered in a petition against the agreement and the Northern Ireland secretary, Tom King, was attacked in Belfast. At a mass rally, the DUP leader Ian Paisley addressed the crowd and infamously proclaimed his grievances at the agreement and at the Republic of Ireland’s involvement in government: Where do the terrorists operate from? From the Irish Republic! That's where they come from! Where do the terrorists return to for sanctuary? To the Irish Republic! And yet Mrs Thatcher tells us that the Republic must have some say in our Province. We say never, never, never, never! (Siggins 2015)

As well as Paisley’s ‘Never’ dictum, ‘Ulster Says No’ would become the slogan for the campaign against the agreement contributing significantly to the perception of unionists as being wholly intransigent and opposed to progress of any kind.

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December Bride (1991) Filmed on location in and around Strangford Lough, County Down, Thaddeus O’Sullivan’s December Bride (O’Sullivan, 1991) was released in cinemas in 1991. The film was again funded by Film Four, however, unlike the other films examined, it received financing from sources within Northern Ireland as significant investment came from Ulster Television (Hill 1999: 60). This is not the only indigenous quality to the film’s production. Although the director, O’Sullivan, is from Dublin, as the film is based on Ulster Protestant writer Sam Hanna Bell’s 1951 novel of the same name, it can be seen to be the closest cinema had come to producing an indigenous Ulster Protestant film. Furthermore, Bell’s biographer has also suggested the story may be at least partly true by stating that the maternal side of Bell’s family knew of such a scenario that the narrative core of both the film and novel was based on, a ménage a trois between a woman and two brothers on a farm, and that it may have involved distant relations of Bell’s in Rafferty, County Down, where the author spent part of his childhood (Pettitt 2001: 2). The story follows the lives of three individually minded members of a conservative Presbyterian community in rural County Down as they “remain uncompromising in the face of the social opprobrium of the local community” (Caughie and Rockett 1996: 124). Spanning the lifetime of one generation, the film begins with the Echlin family taking in two women, Sarah (Saskia Reeves) and her mother (Brenda Bruce), as servants. After the death of the Echlin patriarch in a boating accident, Sarah’s mother moves out of the house but Sarah continues to live with the two Echlin brothers, Hamilton (Donal McCann) and Frank (Ciarán Hinds). As the film progresses, Sarah becomes romantically involved with both of them and has two children; it is not clear who is the father of either child. Frank, the younger of the two brothers, later attends the Twelfth of July celebrations where he attempts to court a young woman. This event leads to Frank realising that his unorthodox domestic situation has resulted in him being shunned by the local community and to him getting beaten by a group of men. The film then moves forward 18 years; Sarah is pressured by her now grown daughter (Dervla Kirwan) to marry so that she may ‘have a name’. Relenting, Sarah eventually decides to marry the older Echlin brother, Hamilton, although this is also not absolutely clear due to the close proximity Sarah and the Echlin brothers stand to each other at the altar. The title, ‘December Bride’ refers, somewhat pejoratively, to a

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woman who marries late in life and is a common expression within the Ulster-Scots community. Parallels can be drawn between the film and John Ford’s The Quiet Man (Ford, 1952), a Hollywood film starring John Wayne and filmed on location in Mayo and Galway that has had an indelible influence on screen depictions of Ireland. Both Ford’s film and December Bride make use of picturesque landscapes of rural Ireland associated much more with Irish nationalism and Catholicism than unionism and Protestantism. However, Baker explains that an important distinction is the depiction of hard-­ working rural Protestants in December Bride. He states that there is “barely a scene in the film which its characters are not engaged in some work or other, which runs contrary to the long held association of the Irish rural scenery with leisure and romanticism” (Baker 2015: 87). Furthermore, McLoone notes how the shores of the lough and the sandy beaches recall the horse-race locations in The Quiet Man but that this time “an assembly of bowler-hatted Orangemen, somber farmers and a strident orator replace Ford’s gallery of Irish stereotypes. The communal farce of the horse race is replaced by the earnest marching and banners of the Orange parade” (McLoone 2006: 209). There are other parallels between the two films as well, in the horse-­ race sequence in Ford’s film, young women put their bonnets on poles at the finish line of the horse race with the winning man having the choice of bonnets. In December Bride, the Twelfth of July sequence similarly incorporates an odd and primitive courting ritual; women put their shawls on the ground and the men must charge for them from opposite sides. The winner is whoever emerges with the coveted shawl and in the process of returning the item gets the women’s attention. Further parallels can be drawn as in both films the young women have to be encouraged to put up their items. However, the similarities can be seen to end there as unlike Ford’s film where the game brings the lovers together, in O’Sullivan’s film, the game leads to Frank getting viciously beaten by members of his own community. McLoone explains, “The similarities, both in setting and in narrative progression, are striking enough to alert the audience (especially the audience familiar with The Quiet Man) to the fact that a wholly different people have wandered into a recognisably Irish film” (McLoone 2006: 210). By locating Protestant people and unionist traditions in such a landscape, December Bride can be seen to challenge the tradition of representation and act as a reminder that the Ireland thus far seen in cinema does not solely belong to nationalist Ireland.

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This subversion of the traditional romantic imagery of Ireland is an aberration as the dominant portrayal of Ireland in film at this time remained that of a nationalist and Catholic kind as exemplified by Ron Howard’s big-budget Hollywood film, Far and Away (Howard, 1992), which was released the following year and focused again on rural Catholic Ireland. With the fundamental shift that would occur in Irish cinema in later years, away from the bold aesthetics and radical filmmaking of the 1980s towards a more commercial type of cinema, a focus on rural Irish Protestant’s in O’Sullivan’s film can be seen as even more of an aberration in this regard. However, Ruth Barton finds that in December Bride the Irish landscape and Protestantism may not have such a congenial relationship. Referring to a Lambeg drum, the playing of which by the coastline one evening ushers in the Twelfth of July celebrations, she explains, “Whilst it could be argued that the beat of the drums echoes and blends with nature, the intervention of the Orangeman in another aspect of the natural order, Frank’s courtship, suggests more a clash than a sense of harmony” (Barton 2004: 167). Furthermore, Barton points out that O’Sullivan’s film is about the importance of rituals to survival and the tension between natural rituals and the man-made rituals of the Church and the Orange Order. In this regard, Orangeism and doctrine can be identified as being an unwelcome intrusion and that rural Protestantism, as represented by Sarah and the two Echlin brothers, is rather naturally predisposed to stoic independence. The line, “All botched on the inside, but smooth to the eye, like lazy work”, said in the film by Sarah, references innate contradictions within Protestantism and the flawed nature of the community’s conservative institutions. Perhaps alluding to another predisposition of rural Protestantism, Sarah can be seen on occasion in the film to be inherently sectarian. She does not reciprocate Hamilton’s acceptance of his neighbour’s Catholicism. She is also seen to be reluctant to acknowledge the Catholic observance of fasting on a Friday and objects to Frank and Hamilton moving the Catholic family into her old house. It is interesting that the Echlin brothers do seem to be impervious to this type of bigotry, a point Hamilton articulates when he tells the Reverend Sorleyson (Patrick Malahide), “It’s our way and it works.” Barton explains that the brothers’ “negation of accepted familial mores coincides with their denial of the loyalist ethic” and goes on to explain that through a number of visual hints the brothers are seen to be feminised and therefore “outside the ‘macho’ loyalist ethic” (Barton 2004: 167). Examples of this in the film include the brother’s intimate

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contact with children, their dancing with Sarah in the kitchen—a scene glimpsed through the window by the horrified Sorleyson—and their general pleasure of being in her company. Loyalist paramilitaries, more commonly seen in film than the type of unionists depicted in the films analysed in this chapter, have long been synonymous with this ‘macho’ loyalist ethic; referring to one paramilitary organisation, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), Colin Crawford explains this phenomenon when he states, “a macho culture within the UDA command ensured that leadership positions were usually seized by the hard men, and as a consequence the macho culture of the UDA was perpetuated” (Crawford 2003: 30). This macho culture was also perpetuated by the fact that, unlike Republican paramilitaries, females were not allowed to join loyalist paramilitary organisations. This can be seen as another way December Bride subverts typical expectations; members of the unionist community are typically seen in cinema at this point as undeniably masculine and this stereotype would become reinforced in films released after December Bride. Owing perhaps to the indigenous quality of the film, December Bride gives a much more rounded and nuanced depiction of the under-­ represented unionist community than had been produced previously. The film also subverts the typical portrayal of Irish scenery by populating it with Protestant Irish as opposed to Catholic Irish and in doing so can be seen to comment on this abnormality and on traditions of representation. Furthermore, December Bride is yet another example of a film that embodies the New Irish Cinema movement; it achieves this mainly by challenging stereotypes about Protestantism in Ireland in a manner that is rarely identifiable in films with a more contemporary setting.

This Is the Sea (1997) This Is the Sea is directed by Northern Irish-born filmmaker, Mary McGuckian, and is produced by her production company Pembridge Pictures. The film is a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ story set in Northern Ireland after the 1994 paramilitary ceasefires with the forbidden romance being between a Catholic from west Belfast on the periphery of the republican movement, Malachy (Ross McDade) and a sheltered young Protestant woman from a traditional Plymouth Brethren community in the Glens of Antrim, Hazel (Samantha Morton). As a result, the film subverts traditional romantic imagery of Ireland in a similar manner to December Bride

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by locating Protestant people in a rural Irish landscape more associated with Irish nationalism. The Plymouth Brethren are a non-conformist evangelical Christian community whose history can be traced back to Dublin in the late 1920s where they originated from Anglicans. The movement is characterised by a rejection of a concept of clergy and instead assemblies are led by local church elders. The controlling elder in Hazel’s assembly is a character called Old Man Jacobs (Richard Harris) who it is later discovered has sexually abused Hazel and attempted to kill Malachy, killing his brother in the process. Whether his motivation for doing so is due to sectarianism, out of a desire to restore traditional order or jealousy is largely left up to interpretation. In a similar manner to Loach’s Hidden Agenda, despite being set in the 1990s and depicting Belfast prominently, no other unionists are identifiable and, in fact, exploration of the life of Malachy’s nationalist family takes up the majority of screen time. Producing something of a simplification, this rural conservative minority community within unionism largely serves as a counterpoint to the much more progressive Irish nationalist community. As will be identified in later films, such as With or Without You (Winterbottom, 1999), An Everlasting Piece (Levinson, 2000) and Mickybo and Me (Loane, 2004), Hazel’s infatuation with the seeming progressiveness and conviviality of the nationalist community, albeit influenced somewhat by her love of Malachy, exemplifies what will become a pattern of representation in which a solemn unionist transforms as a result of exposure to Irish nationalism. Despite this, the republican community is represented as having its own traditions and customs which Malachy must—like Hazel—distance himself from. His relationship with Hazel is cursed by his brother’s grieving girlfriend, who sees his relationship with the “proddy girl” as being the cause of her lover’s death. He also struggles to escape a local IRA leader’s advances and manipulative ways of making him carry out objectives. Malachy’s disapproval of his brother receiving a typical republican funeral, complete with an Irish tricolour flag draped over the coffin and volley of shots, also draws a comparison with the Plymouth Brethren’s traditions and rituals from which Hazel seeks solace. Several pieces of dialogue identify members of the Plymouth Brethren community as unionists, most noticeably Hazel’s brother (Marc O’Shea) and mother (Dearbhla Molloy). Although brief, these exchanges do more to address the complexity of the unionist identity than is typical. Firstly, Hazel’s brother approaches his mother and several other members of the community as they discuss the possibility of an upcoming referendum.

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Man: A referendum may herald some change … Woman: Aye, and sure if it doesn’t them Catholics will have us outbred in ten years any road. Mother: Yous talk as if we’re sold out already? Jeff: Sure aren’t we?

This short sequence of dialogue is interesting in a number of ways. Firstly, it alludes to a fear at the core of unionism and which can be understood to unify unionists in opposition to nationalists: the worry that Catholics will eventually outnumber them within the Northern Irish state. This is a concern alluded to earlier in Ascendancy and given a satirical treatment in a later film, The Most Fertile Man in Ireland. Secondly, it alludes to how distrustful unionists typically are of the British state and government and how there exists paranoia that they will someday be betrayed. In fact, the conversation suggests that the unionists depicted are predisposed to conflate any idea of compromise with being sold out. In a later scene, which begins with an establishing shot of a Union flag on a flagpole outside the assembly’s church, the community’s lack of trust in Britain and the complexity of the unionist identity are highlighted further. Although the flag has been erected high, it appears listless, hardly noticeable, as there is no breeze for it to fly. Reflecting how Northern Irish unionists are typically depicted, this is markedly different from how the Union flag is often seen in cinema. Coming out of the Church, Hazel’s mother and brother, Jeff, look up at the flag. Mother: Jeff:

You’d wonder at us, carrying that flag up here. The way we’ve been let down. We’ll hold out, Ma, never fear.

Hazel’s words again allude to the fear of being sold out by the British state, however, they also address the complexity of the unionist identity and the absurdity of being loyal to a state that shows no loyalty to you. Jeff’s reply somewhat hints at his own resorting to violence later when he is involved in Old Man Jacobs’ plan to kill Malachy. It also provides an allegory for the Plymouth Brethren community’s difficulty in maintaining their non-conformist ways. This suggests that, at least in their mind, the Plymouth Brethren way of life and the union with Britain are intrinsically linked.

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Conclusion O’Sullivan’s December Bride and McGuckian’s This Is the Sea are anomalies and mark a real progression in terms of representation given their focus on unionist characters and themes; they can even be described as two of the most nuanced and interesting depictions of unionists found in cinema to date. This is somewhat ironic given the almost complete absence of unionists in cinema, particularly around the time that December Bride was being produced, and the emergence of positive depictions of republicans in Hollywood films in the 1990s. However, importantly, this comprehensive approach still doesn’t produce a film with a favourable portrayal of unionists. Sequences that allude to the complexity of, and attempt to address, the unionist identity are also largely subtle and brief. Unionism is associated predominantly with conservative religious institutions such as the Presbyterian Church, the Orange Order or the Plymouth Brethren movement; this is a type of depiction that furthers the stereotype that unionists are inherently backward, solemn and uncompromising. Perceived contradictions within these institutions at a fundamental level are also explored. In December Bride, although the film can be seen at times to celebrate certain values of Ulster Protestantism such as individuality, these values are ultimately shown by the film’s end to be overshadowed by the need to conform to societal expectations (liberty does win out in McGuckian’s film but at a cost). Furthermore, as exemplified by Sarah, a character who has nothing but contempt for her community’s rituals and actively rebels against them, sectarianism is depicted as being a characteristic of, and even inherent within, the unionist community.

References Baker, Stephen. 2015. Loyalism on Film and Out of Context. In: The Contested Identities of Ulster Protestants. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Barton, Ruth. 2004. Irish National Cinema. London: Routledge. Caughie, John, and Kevin Rockett. 1996. The Companion to British and Irish Cinema. London: British Film Institute. Clarke, Donald. 2019. Ken Loach: What's Britain doing owning part of Ireland? Irish Times. Accessed 5 October 2022 https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/ film/ken-­loach-­what-­s-­britain-­doing-­owning-­part-­of-­ireland-­1.4061472. Coogan, Tim Pat. 2001. Wherever Green Is Worn: The Story of the Irish Diaspora. New York: Palgrave.

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Crawford, Colin. 2003. Inside the UDA: Volunteers and Violence. London: Pluto Press. Hall, Mick. 2006. Loach hits back. Daily Ireland. June 1 2006. Hill, John. 1999. British Cinema in the 1980s. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kelly, Stephen. 2016. Thatcher and the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Accessed 5 October 2022 https://thatchernet.org/2016/11/29/ thatchers-­and-­the-­anglo-­irish-­agreement-­1985-­by-­dr-­stephen-­kelly/. McLoone, Martin. 2006. Irish Film: The Emergence of a Contemporary Cinema. 2nd ed. London: British Film Institute. Pettitt, Lance. 2000. Screening Ireland: Film and Television Representation. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ———. 2001. Ireland Into Film: December Bride. Cork: Cork University Press. Rockett, Kevin. 1994. Culture, Industry and Irish Cinema. In: Border Crossings: Film in Ireland Britain and Europe. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies. Siggins, Ger. 2015. Flashback 1985: The signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Independent. Accessed 5 October 2022 https://www.independent.ie/life/ flashback-­1985-­the-­signing-­of-­the-­anglo-­irish-­agreement-­34190246.html.

CHAPTER 4

Paramilitaries Begin to Dominate Representations of Unionists

From 1993 paramilitaries would almost entirely dominate the screen representation of unionists. Somewhat ironically, this dominance would come at a time of both republican and loyalist paramilitary ceasefires and a move towards peace in Northern Ireland. However, Hill argues that it is precisely because progress had been made in the peace process that such films could be made. He explains: [W]hile the ‘troubles’ were certainly not over, there was a growing sense that the decline in violence and the movement towards a new political dispensation within Northern Ireland did permit the production of films that it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to make at an earlier stage. (Hill 2006: 196)

The dominance would also come during the period after the re-instating of the Irish Film Board in 1993 and what is considered a ‘second wave’ in Irish cinema. The ‘first wave’ is considered as spanning the period 1979–1988 and films produced at this time are generally described as politically experimental at the level of form and content whereas the ‘second wave’ is regarded as being more conservative and focused on universal themes (O’Connell 2004: 129). The second installation of the Irish Film Board also led to much more output aimed at the US market for reasons of financial return.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Gallagher, Screening Ulster, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23436-1_4

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This chapter will look at the films that were released in cinemas from 1993 until the end of the decade that depicts loyalist paramilitaries. However, the primary focus of the chapter will be on the two films that are actually centred on loyalist paramilitaries, Thaddeus O’Sullivan’s Nothing Personal (O’Sullivan, 1995) and Marc Evans’ Resurrection Man (Evans, 1998). Both films are also somewhat inseparable given they are significantly influenced by the infamous loyalist gang, the Shankill Butchers (although neither film makes any claim to historical accuracy), set in Belfast in the 1970s and were criticised heavily for their portrayal of the unionist community upon their release. Another development that this chapter will comment on is the presence and intriguing absence of loyalist paramilitaries in the two ‘Martin Cahill’ films between 1998 and 2000. First, it is necessary to give some context explaining the loyalist gang that shaped a number of the films made at this time. The Shankill Butchers worked within UVF units in the Shankill area of west Belfast; the gang was active between 1975 and 1982 and was notorious for kidnapping, torturing and brutally murdering Catholic civilians. In total, the gang is believed to have murdered at least 23 people making them one of the biggest mass murderers in Britain’s history (Dillon 1990: xvii). However, it is not only the number of victims that has led to the group’s infamous status but also the manner of their crimes; as the gang’s name indicates, the Shankill Butchers’ proficiency in sadistically torturing people with knives, axes and meat cleavers before murdering them was well known. These crimes played a significant role in the generation of a perception that loyalist paramilitaries revelled in their cruelty and did not just carry out acts of terrorism like the politically motivated acts of terrorism carried out by republican paramilitaries. Stephen Baker explains that the use of knives and the ritualistic character of their killings “helped facilitate the notion of a primitive impulse” when it came to loyalism (Baker 2004: 79). Perhaps unsurprisingly, despite the violence carried out by the Shankill Butchers being out of character for loyalist operations to a large extent, as exemplified in both Nothing Personal and Resurrection Man, it is the perception of loyalist paramilitaries as having this primitive impulse that came to characterise representations in cinema at this time. Furthermore, it seems that once these loyalist gangs were established as being barbaric, there was no desire or incentive to explore political motivations or engage with the politics of the loyalist community in any meaningful way. Most of the gang were eventually caught in 1979 and given the longest combined prison sentences in British legal history. However, some,

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including the gang’s leader Lenny Murphy, escaped prosecution. Murphy was later killed in November 1982 by the Provisional IRA, likely acting with loyalist paramilitaries who had grown to perceive him as a threat (Dillon 1990: 313). Despite the gang terrorising Belfast, the true extent of their depravity was not revealed until Martin Dillon’s book The Shankill Butchers: A Case Study of Mass Murder was released in 1990. The release of Dillon’s book could be seen as a catalyst for depictions of unionism returning to cinema screens at this time. It is certainly likely that it influenced both Daniel Mornin’s 1991 novel, All Our Fault, that Nothing Personal is based on, and Eoin McNamee’s 1994 novel, Resurrection Man, that the film of the same name is based on. Due to the absence of unionism in cinema over the previous decade and the general cinematic deficit some initially welcomed Nothing Personal’s incorporation of unionism. Hill explains, “Nothing Personal is an unusual film in focusing on loyalist rather than republican paramilitaries” (Hill 2006: 196). Furthermore, Emer Rockett provides a positive assessment of the film by describing it as “a humanist plea against sectarian violence” (Rockett 2005: 245). However, the dominant reaction to both Nothing Personal and Resurrection Man from the media and from the unionist community was condemnation. However, such a reaction to the films needs to be understood as revealing as much about the contested nature of politics in Northern Ireland as it does about the quality of the films. Unionism being depicted almost solely as paramilitaries, and with a specific focus on the Shankill Butchers, would anger many commentators from within the unionist community. As well as receiving funding from Channel 4 and the funding agency British Screen, Nothing Personal acquired funding from the Irish Film Board and it was this finance, along with the board’s funding of Some Mother’s Son (George, 1996) and The Boxer (Sheridan, 1997), which resulted in verbal attacks made by pro-­ unionist critics. Although the Irish Film Board was set up and then re-­ instated in order to generate economic returns for the Republic, it was always very much ‘all-Ireland’ in cultural orientation. As a result, the financing of such films, seen by some to be about people and a community outside its jurisdiction, would not have been seen as an issue for the board. The most prominent critic of the board upon Nothing Personal’s release was Alexander Walker who, coming from the unionist community himself and working for the London-based Evening Standard, described the film as “anti-Protestant” (Linehan 1996a). In his criticism of the Irish Film Board for supporting the film he went as far as to describe the board as

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opening up a ‘second front’ within the Republic and promoting ‘nationalist propaganda’ (Hill 2006: 178). McIlroy claims that O’Sullivan knew that the film would cause controversy, since it showed the loyalists as aggressors and the nationalists as victims (McIlroy 2001: 121). Quoted from the Venice Film Festival in 1995, O’Sullivan stated, “I guess it was a political decision [to show the loyalist guerrillas] but that was what the book was about, and it was written by a Protestant” (Ibid.). The director also received a barrage of criticism for making the film from a hostile panel upon the film’s release when he put himself forward to be interviewed on Ulster Television’s current affairs programme, Counterpoint (Linehan 1996b). On the programme he appears to attribute the limitations of the medium on the film not presenting a fuller depiction of unionism when he argues, “I would love to have made a film that caught all the intricacies and political intrigue of Belfast in the 1970s but that kind of story is unfinanceable. The only thing I could confront is the personal consequences of the situation” (Ibid.). Despite not receiving funding from the Irish Film Board, Resurrection Man was met with even more criticism upon its release in 1998; one possible reason for this was due to the film being released in the same year as the signing of the Good Friday Agreement and the invigorated desire for peace that it accompanied; it is certainly unlikely that the film would have been welcomed by those campaigning for a yes vote in the Good Friday Agreement referendum. For example, the film provoked protests in Northern Ireland and caused some British critics to walk out of previews. In fact, even a spokesperson for Sinn Féin joined members of political parties with loyalist paramilitary connections such as the Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) and the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) in denouncing the film’s representation of the loyalist community as “irresponsible” (Hill 2006: 206). The writer of As the Beast Sleeps (Bradbeer, 2002), Gary Mitchell, also laments the film’s depiction of the unionist community to which he belongs and compares the film to another Troubles film released the same year to illustrate two extreme ends of a spectrum. He states, “[I]f contributions to theatre or local exhibitions have been poor, then cinema has been the equivalent of, well, Resurrection Man vs The Boxer” and that “Ugly, however, is reserved for depictions of the Protestant/Loyalist community—or so you would think if you were relying on Resurrection Man as a guide” (Mitchell, 1998). Walker is again critical and described the film as a “nauseating exercise”, whilst Christopher Tookey, of the

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London-based Daily Mail, described it as “an outpouring of anti-unionist hatred” (Walker 1998; Lyttle 1998). Others, such as Baker, take issue with both Nothing Personal and Resurrection Man for their failure to engage with the politics of the loyalist community believing the reluctance to engage meaningfully impoverishes understanding of the conflict in Ireland (Baker 2004: 80). Although recognising that Nothing Personal at least aspires to political cinema due it’s acknowledging in its credits a debt to Gillo Pontecorvo’s La battaglia di Algeri/The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo, 1966) which recreated the struggle for Algerian independence, Baker explains: O’Sullivan’s film is very different in content and style. Where Pontecorvo’s depiction of political insurrection was served by cinéma verité, Nothing Personal is more readily comparable to contemporary films like those of Quentin Tarantino, displaying a similar penchant for 1970s chic and cinematic iconography of urban gangsterism as Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994). (Baker 2004: 78)

Indeed, Nothing Personal is not the only film focused on Ireland to have been influenced by the emergence of postmodern, stylised crime films in the 1990s as Resurrection Man displays perhaps even more hallmarks of this genre. John Boorman’s The General (Boorman, 1998)—a film which includes a brief depiction of loyalist paramilitaries—is another to establish itself in this tradition of gangster films at this time and will be analysed later in this chapter. As has been the case when looking at earlier periods, the cinematic deficit is compounded at this time by the fact that Hollywood continues to depict Irish republicans prominently and favourably. In fact, some of the Hollywood films produced at this time could be described as the most sympathetic depictions of republicanism found in cinema. The favourable depiction of the IRA in the Hollywood films The Devil’s Own (Pakula, 1997) and The Jackal (Caton-Jones, 1997) exemplifies the bias in Hollywood cinema at the time. The same could also be said of films made by Irish directors—albeit financed by North America as well—such as Terry George’s Some Mother’s Son, a film about the 1981 hunger strike, and Neil Jordan’s Michael Collins (Jordan, 1996), a film about one of Ireland’s foremost revolutionaries. Although most of these films continue to stop short of condoning republican violence and present the Irish republican path as one that is destined to end in personal tragedy,

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increasingly, there is a sympathetic quality to republican characters at this time. This is perhaps most obvious when looking at The Devil’s Own and The Jackal. In The Devil’s Own, empathy for the film’s protagonist, Frankie McGuire (Brad Pitt) is assured from the outset due to a prologue set in 1972 that depicts his tranquil childhood being interrupted by loyalist paramilitaries who shoot his father dead at the dinner table as the family pray. The film then fast-forwards to 1992 when Frankie has become a fully fledged Provisional IRA member who travels to America to acquire weapons to bring down British Army helicopters. However, a nobility to his motives can still be identified as he makes it clear that he believes bringing down the helicopters to be the only way to get the British to “talk peace”. Furthermore, the relationship between McGuire and Tom O’Meara (Harrison Ford), a strait-laced Police Officer who McGuire stays with in New  York, is used as a device to simultaneously legitimise McGuire’s actions and criticise the role Britain has played in Ireland. The dilemma O’Meara faces in the film is between his valuing of law and order and his sympathy for Frankie and Irish republicanism. Mark Connelly explains, “The film builds on the irony the British find both puzzling and distasteful. Tough on crime at home, American police officers and judges embrace and celebrate those who kill police officers and judges in Britain” (Connelly 2012: 179). This dilemma is only resolved upon O’Meara’s realisation that Britain’s standards of law and order are perverse and don’t meet his own which leads to his refusal to hand Frankie over to the British authorities. The film generated protest in the British tabloids with commentators irate at the themes in the film and at heartthrob Brad Pitt being cast as an IRA member.1 Contention was also created over the film’s use of an image of the aftermath of the real-life bombing of a Fish and Chip shop on the loyalist Shankill Road in 1993 where ten civilians were killed to depict the fictional bombing carried out by Frankie which killed British Army personnel. As well as being an exploitation of a tragedy, the decision to use the photo reinforced the perception that unionism and Protestant victims

1  Hill claims The Devil’s Own was condemned in many sections of the British press and that Princess Diana was forced to apologise for taking her sons, William and Harry, to see it (Hill 2006: 190).

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of violence were being ignored and that the conflict was being depicted in Hollywood films as solely a feud between the IRA and the British Army.2 The Jackal’s depiction of Joseph Declan Mulqueen (Richard Gere), a former IRA member who retired to the United States where he was jailed on weapons charges and sentenced to 50 years in prison, is also significant. In fact, Connelly claims that Caton-Jones’ film moves beyond the type of empathy for republicanism found in A Devil’s Own and towards adoration, “as an imprisoned IRA man is elevated from convict to action hero” (Connelly 2012: 181). A classic trope in action films, Mulqueen finds himself in a position where, because of his past, only he can help the government track down the Jackal (Bruce Willis). As the film progresses, initial claims that Mulqueen is a “terrorist” are found to be unwarranted as he proves to be an obedient FBI asset, even turning down the opportunity to escape on several occasions, and his claim that he is a “soldier” is validated. At the film’s end, Mulqueen’s actions save the life of the first lady and lead to the death of the Jackal, resulting in yet another dilemma for a strait-laced policeman; this time, Mulqueen’s handler, Carter Preston (Sidney Poitier), casually allows Mulqueen to walk away a free man.

The Road to Peace In October 1993 one of the most deplorable acts of violence of the Troubles was committed by members of the UDA when they opened fire on civilians in a crowded pub during a Halloween party in Greysteel, Co. Derry. The killers entered the bar and yelled “trick or treat” before opening fire on the packed crowd, killing seven people. The pub was targeted because it was frequented by nationalists and was revenge for the Shankill Road bombing by the Provisional IRA that had occurred the week before. The heinous nature of this event further added to the perception that loyalist paramilitaries were knowingly contributing and even celebrating their status as villainous. Written in the aftermath of this event, David McKittrick’s comments exemplify how loyalist violence was being understood at the time: 2  Another controversy arose in 2017 in relation to the 1993 bombing when Channel 4 were forced to apologise for a joke in the US sitcom Blackish which referenced the incident. The show implied that being an Irish republican and “bringing down a couple of fish and chip shops to be free of British rule” was better than being a member of the United States’ Republican political party.

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The massacre in Greysteel has once again illustrated one of the most striking features of loyalist terrorists: that for sheer hot blooded, vengeful savagery they can often leave the IRA standing. The IRA use murder as a cold-­ blooded and clinically calculated means to a political end; loyalist assassins often leave the unmistakable impression that they are men who enjoy their work. (McKittrick 1994: 301)

Also referring to the Greysteel Bar massacre, Baker claims that any group that can execute such an attack is, “arguably participating in (indeed, revelling in) the construction of its own abject reputation” (Baker 2004: 84). The fact that in the period after the ceasefires, loyalists were actually engaged in more killings also offers an explanation as to why cinema at this time was reinforcing the perception that loyalist paramilitaries were revelling in the crimes they committed. Significant progress in the Peace Process also occurred during this time. The 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, despite not being roundly accepted, can be seen as a forerunner to the peace agreements that followed. In the late 1980s, backed by the Irish government and through an intermediary, discussions began between all parties with an aim of ending the bloodshed (Melaugh 2019). In December 1993, the Downing Street Declaration was issued by the British and Irish governments; the declaration was intended to alleviate unionist fears of a United Ireland being created without the consent of the majority in Northern Ireland whilst alleviating nationalist fears that the British government had a strategic or economic interest in the region (Mullan 2019). As they had done with the Anglo-­ Irish Agreement, Ian Paisley and the DUP opposed the declaration. In April 1994, the Provisional IRA announced a temporary ceasefire that would last for three days before announcing what was believed to be a more permanent ceasefire in August; loyalist bombings and shootings would continue during this time. The Loyalist Military Command, representing the UDA, UVF and Red Hand Commando announced a ceasefire in October although—inducing splits in the organisations—this did not fully bring an end to loyalist violence. In February 1996, one hour after announcing that their 17-month ceasefire was over, the Provisional IRA detonated a bomb in the London Docklands, killing two people, injuring 40 and causing £150 million worth of damage. The organisation cited the British Prime Minister John Major acting in bad faith and being biased towards unionism by not allowing Sinn Féin into talks until the Provisional IRA decommissioned its arms as the reason for the end of the ceasefire.

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Incidentally, the bombing resulted in Channel 4 postponing the distribution of Nothing Personal in mainland Britain (Linehan 1996b). Tony Blair was elected in May 1997, becoming the first Labour British Prime Minister in 23 years; Blair adopted much of the framework that had been put in place by Major in regard to achieving peace. However, upon accepting the validity of a renewed IRA ceasefire in July, Sinn Féin were invited into the multi-party talks at Stormont without the prerequisite of IRA decommissioning. When the Good Friday Agreement was finally signed, it would include a commitment to set up a devolved government, targets for paramilitary decommissioning, troop reductions, review of policing, prisoner releases, provisions for polls on Irish reunification and civil rights measures and ‘parity of esteem’ for the two communities in Northern Ireland. The accord was also to be approved by referendum in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. 94% of people in the Republic of Ireland voted for the agreement, which also meant an altering of the Irish constitution that had previously acknowledged that the whole island of Ireland made up one ‘national territory’. Despite also passing with a strong 71% majority in the North and over 50% of Protestants voting for the agreement, it was thought at the time that the vote would be more contentious with unionism being the main obstacle to the agreement being approved (Farrington 2009: 131). The “No” campaign was certainly stronger on the unionist side with many unionists having reservations about what they saw as the likely erosion of British identity and appeasement towards republican paramilitaries. In particular, the release of convicted IRA members from prison, the presence of Sinn Féin in government and the dissolving of the RUC were concerns. This, as well as an often-violent dispute around parading in Drumcree which saw the Orange Order refuse to alter their parading route to appease local nationalist residents, further cemented the perception of unionism as a people who were intransigent and opposed to progress. Nothing Personal (1995) Nothing Personal opens with the bombing of a pub understood to be one frequented by Protestants as the title “A Protestant Bar” appears on screen. However, a knowledgeable audience would also be able to identify this from the fact that men from the RUC are amongst the bar’s clientele. This would also be an example of a theme that will emerge prominently in

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both O’Sullivan’s film and later films, that of unionists being associated with working-class bars and alcohol. After this prologue, the next sequence depicts the aftermath of the bomb where the Catholic protagonist Liam (John Lynch) frantically seeks to rescue survivors amongst the rubble. Even at this early point in the film, McIlroy identifies a peculiarity in representations; he takes issue with the fact that it is the Catholic Liam who is seen and presented sympathetically as he attends to the wounded. According to McIlroy, because the bomb has gone off in a ‘Protestant’ area it doesn’t make sense for the Catholic protagonist Liam (John Lynch) to be walking around this area at a time when levels of sectarian feeling would be very high. Referring to one of the film’s main characters, loyalist gang leader Kenny (James Frain), McIlroy states: It would make more local sense to have Kenny walking around the bomb-­ site, as a visual way of making sense of the Protestant paramilitaries’ motivations: that of a community that feels itself under siege and subject to random attacks by the IRA. (McIlroy 2001: 121)

Such an alteration to the film may have drastically changed the type of representation of unionism and addressed concerns that the film omitted any clear psychological or political rationale for loyalist violence. After this early sequence, the film deviates from this realist path and with the introduction of loyalist paramilitaries, the city (presumably Belfast) takes on a much darker and tragic quality; Hill describes it as a “generalised ‘city of the imagination’ […] shorn of realistic detail” (Hill 2006: 197). This is achieved by the film’s stylised use of colour, lighting and composition. In this way, the film can be seen to both evoke Carol Reed’s 1947 film Odd Man Out (Reed, 1947) and follow in the tradition of film noir-inspired gangster films. The two loyalist paramilitaries introduced at this time are Kenny and his disobedient underling, Ginger (Ian Hart). The duo are immediately established as being villainous by the use of a sinister score and the sound of a knife being flicked open and closed repeatedly. Notably, with carefully groomed facial hair, permed hair and fashionable suits, they also appear significantly more stylish and urban than the more unkempt, warlike republican paramilitaries seen in the film. They wait in a car outside a pub frequented by Catholics until they discover a suitable man to kill, at which point Ginger exits the car and shoots the chosen man in the leg as he runs away and then mocks his victim by pretending to limp. After shooting him several more times—in one of the first

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allusions to the character being influenced by Lenny Murphy—Ginger takes out his knife and bends down towards the body; the scene ends leaving what action is taken with the knife to the audience’s imagination. The use of knives is not referenced in Mornin’s original novel and could be understood as the film further appropriating the iconography associated with the notorious Shankill Butchers. In one of the many occasions in the film that comment on how violence begets violence, a riot between republicans and loyalists ensues in the aftermath of the killing. In return for a loyalist being hit with a petrol bomb during the riot, a republican is doused in petrol. Another loyalist rioter prepares to throw a petrol bomb in his direction in an act that would see the man engulfed in flames but is unable to carry it out. Ginger then grabs the bomb out of his hand and throws it without reservation; this instantly results in the person—who is later discovered to be 15 years old—being set alight. It is at this point that Kenny decides to put the person out of his misery and shoots him several times. An act of mercy such as this is an anathema to Ginger who exclaims, “You should have let him suffer.” This is the first time Kenny can be seen to be opposed to Ginger’s sadism and is presented as less of an abject character as a result. Ginger’s motivation for killing is in stark contrast to what generally motivates republican characters to commit acts of violence in film. His motivation can be seen to come not from a reaction to injustice or violence but from a sectarian desire for ethnic cleansing. This is exemplified when in a heated exchange with Kenny after the riot, he explains, “We have to make life for them so frigging miserable that they get down on their hands and knees and crawl across the fucking border … that makes any Catholic as good as another.” The film suggests at times that the more articulate and level-headed paramilitary members, represented by Kenny, in their courting of men such as Ginger, have given them license to commit acts of barbarity. This is further illustrated in a scene where loyalist leader Leonard (Michael Gambon) tells Kenny to kill Ginger as he is becoming too much of a nuisance given that Leonard has agreed to a ‘truce’; Kenny responds by saying, “Are you sure you won’t be needing him next week?” Ginger’s cruel nature is apparent throughout the film and there is no character arc identifiable. At times in the film he can also be seen to shoot at fellow loyalist paramilitaries for amusement and force a gun into the hands of the young Tommy, encouraging him to kill. In what would become a theme in later films, Ginger doesn’t appear truly loyal to any cause either and on one

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occasion proposes to another gang member that they “do some freelancing”, meaning robbing some money for themselves; Ginger justifies this by stating that he’s done enough for “God and Ulster”. The extent of his cruelty is fully realised in a scene where the accidental death of Liam’s young daughter occurs when a bullet intended for Kenny strikes her. Ginger sickeningly exclaims, “At least that’s another one where all the vermin belong.” This is the moment when Kenny realises that Ginger’s sadism has become too much and he kills him before he is also killed in a hail of army bullets. A more moderate paramilitary killing an extremist evokes the real life of Lenny Murphy and is also a theme in films about Ireland and the Troubles. The film’s narrative is also driven by the desire of senior-ranking members of both republican and loyalist paramilitaries to bring about a ‘truce’ only to be undermined by lower-ranking loyalist paramilitaries, namely Kenny and Ginger. Despite the film being based on Mornin’s novel, the author himself (as he also wrote the screenplay) made changes to the source material in this regard to comment on the ongoing peace process throughout the 1990s. Hill explains, “[B]y the time the novel was made into a film the agreement of a ‘truce’ and the reactions of the paramilitaries to this had become a key component of the plot” (Hill 2006: 197). When Leonard first mentions the ‘truce’ Kenny is affronted and asks whether he is just expected to “knuckle under the IRA gun”. In relating the news to another member of his gang, Eddie (Gary Lydon), his contempt for the arrangement is made further apparent by his claim that they will keep the ‘truce’ until “we break it”. Eddie then asks him, “When will we break it?” to which Kenny responds by saying, “I haven’t decided”. Kenny and his gang do proceed to break the ceasefire as the film proceeds by shooting at a pub and kidnapping and torturing Liam. By focusing on loyalist paramilitaries breaking a 1975 ceasefire and their vocal contempt for any ‘truce’, the film can therefore be understood to give the impression that loyalists were more likely to break the 1994 ceasefire than their republican counterparts and therefore ostensibly the instigators of the conflict. Given the fact that in the years preceding the release of the film, despite the Provisional IRA also breaking the ceasefire, loyalist paramilitaries killing more people than their republican counterparts meant that this was a perception that one could imagine wasn’t hard to establish. However, a somewhat positive representation of loyalist paramilitaries is offered in the film in the form of Leonard who at all times seems only concerned with achieving and maintaining a ceasefire. Fidelma Farley

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explains that the violence he does occasionally exercise “is seen as a necessary evil, in order to be rid of the dangerous, fanatical and unstable elements who still espouse violence and lawlessness” (Farley 2001: 209). The only time a possible sectarian nature is detected is when he responds to a republican paramilitary’s claim that he’s a “backstreet fascist” with the insult “Fenian bastard”. Furthermore, in the film’s attempt to construct an opposition between the public sphere of political violence and the private domestic sphere occupied by family, Leonard can be seen to be the only male unionist character concerned with the latter. This is identified when, upon finding out Kenny is living in the back room of the pub and not with his family, he tells him, “You take care of your family before anything else.” A commonality can be identified in this regard between him, the film’s female characters and the apolitical single father, Liam. At this point in the film, he also, like the unionist women in the film, seems genuinely remorseful that paramilitaries under his control have killed a 15-year-old rioter and when Kenny attempts to justify his gang’s actions by telling Leonard that one of his own guys was also badly injured, he refuses to accept it as any type of justification. In what would also become a theme in films about the Troubles in later years, Tommy (Rúaidhrí Conroy), a teenager who is briefly a member of Kenny’s gang, is another example of a positive representation of loyalism, and his actions in particular are in stark contrast to the malevolence of Ginger. He seems averse to killing or maiming as exemplified by his refusal to pull the trigger and kill Liam despite being under extreme duress by Ginger. His interest in paramilitarism initially seems motivated by a desire to emulate Kenny and attract female attention. Young males from the unionist community getting involved in violence due to a naive belief that they are protecting their communities would become a theme in later films such as Five Minutes of Heaven (Hirschbiegel, 2009) and ’71 (Demange, 2014). It can be identified in Nothing Personal when Tommy tells Gloria (Tara Lynne O’Neill), a girl he walks home with, that he is “defending our people and our country”. Interestingly, this is a concern echoed by a young male nationalist in the film as, in the aftermath of the riot, he explains that the other side would have “slaughtered us for sure if they’d have got to us”. By having both young characters declare similar motivations, the film could be understood to depict these motivations as juvenile. Tommy’s escape from the car before it is fired upon and his renouncing of sectarian violence, indicated through his attacking of Ginger

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at the end of the film, could also be understood as the film’s signalling of a more positive future. Women in the film, most of who are from the unionist community, offer another contrast to the cruelty of Kenny’s gang. Women are never depicted as engaging in violence or condoning it; they are always found to represent the private sphere of domesticity and nonviolence which at all times is in contrast to the public sphere of political violence represented by male characters. Farley explains, “The film sees violence as an exclusively male problem, a legacy passed on from one man to another, symbolised by the handshake by which Kenny initiates new members into the group” (Farley 2001: 209). The fact that loyalist paramilitaries, unlike their republican counterparts, didn’t allow women to join lends authenticity to the approach the film takes. However, Nothing Personal is not unique in this manner as, despite female republican paramilitary characters featuring prominently in films depicting republican violence, most films about the conflict emphasise the male nature of political violence. In fact, in this regard, O’Sullivan’s film fits neatly into the general trend of ‘Troubles cinema’. The best example of women representing this private sphere can be found when examining the character Ann (Maria Doyle Kennedy), the wife of Kenny and mother of his two children. Upon discovering Liam wounded outside her house—marked as being a unionist area due to territorial markings in the form of a mural of William of Orange—she takes him into her home, tends to his wounds and allows him to recuperate despite knowing and acknowledging that he is a Catholic. Further examples of women being opposed to violence and sectarianism can be found when a woman in the loyalist pub expresses sympathy for the 15-year-old Catholic killed in the street riot and, when discovering Tommy has a gun, Gloria refuses to kiss him. The casting of youthful and attractive actresses as unionist female characters, specifically those who act as love interests, also marks a departure from previous depictions of unionists as male and elderly. Contrary to some of the criticism the film received, it could be understood therefore that with Leonard, Tommy, unionist women and Kenny’s eventual remorsefulness, unionist characters are depicted as humanist and sympathetic. However, on occasion, Nothing Personal can be understood to implicate the wider unionist community in sectarianism and as a result, there is some validity in the criticism the film received in this regard. This implication of the wider unionist community in sectarianism can be seen

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in the film’s pursuit of creating tension when Kathleen, Liam’s young daughter, enters into the loyalist pub. Having already left the safety of her area and bravely traversed the sectarian geography of Belfast, despite her friend’s protestations, she faces the pub and studies its intimidating caged surround at its entrance. Closely resembling a scene in Maeve (Murphy and Davies, 1981) discussed earlier, a Northern Ireland flag is also positioned above the cage and this provides some exposition as to why this area is so hostile for her. She enters through the cage and inside the pub via its heavy prison-like door, a background wall mural of a Union flag with an inset image of William of Orange is also strategically positioned as the camera follows her to the bar. The pub’s patrons greet her with pleasant responses but a suspenseful interrogation as to who she is and where she’s from (ironically by a character played by the same actor, George Shane, who played the character that interrogated the young Maeve in Murphy and Davies’ 1981 film) suggests she may not be entirely welcome. These questions force her into cleverly lying and hiding her nationalist identity. The scene leaves the audience to determine the extent of the danger she may have been in if the pub’s patrons knew she was from the nationalist community. The creation of this type of suspense at this point in the film suggests that the filmmaker considers it within the realm of possibility that a young girl could be in danger in a loyalist pub. Therefore, it could be considered that this is an assumption that depicts loyalism and people who frequent pubs of this kind as those who would do harm to a young girl if she was found to be from a certain background. This sequence also exemplifies Lucy Newby and Fearghus Roulston’s understanding of how children often function in films about the conflict in regard to sectarian geographies. They claim that children can do things their parents cannot—often in ways that implicitly critique Northern Irish society by showing how adult mobility and sociality are limited by sectarian geographies and imaginaries, as well as by the threat of violence. Nevertheless, this mobility entails a particular type of adolescent vulnerability to violence, in some cases rendering young individuals strategically valuable as targets or marking them out as potential combatants. (Newby and Roulston 2019: 23)

Another occasion when the film can be seen to implicate the wider unionist community in sectarianism occurs in the sequence where a riot breaks

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out. Kenny and his gang stride forcefully towards the rioters only for Kenny to be approached by concerned professionally dressed elderly men who speak with him. The fact that ostensibly respectable men know that he is the person to turn to for protection and therefore the leader of the gang is telling and could be understood as another way the film implicates the wider unionist community in the gang’s crimes. This can also be identified in a scene where Liam is tied to a chair and tortured by Kenny and his gang in the pub after closing. In a moment of respite from the torture, Kenny and Liam converse about how they were friends in the time before the Troubles when the two communities could interact and Liam, in reference to the night’s events which have seen him captured by the gang, claims that he “never had the good sense to keep to his own kind”. Kenny agrees and says, “Someone was always looking to use you as a Pope on Bonfire night.” The mention of Bonfire night is a reference to the Eleventh Night, an annual unionist tradition where bonfires are lit to celebrate the victory of the Protestant William of Orange over Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. The line implies that the burning of an effigy of the head of the Catholic Church is commonplace at these bonfires and that members of the community are malevolent enough to at least consider the substituting of the effigy for a real person provided they were Catholic. Although the line could be considered flippant and an attempt at humour by Kenny, it does allude to the environment that created the two characters and suggests a level of implicitness in sectarianism that is not just confined to the loyalist gang but to the wider unionist community. This issue is exacerbated by the gang in the film being at least partly influenced by the Shankill Butchers as it raises questions as to whether the film also implies that the wider unionist community are implicated in their heinous crimes. Resurrection Man would open itself up to even more scrutiny in this regard. Resurrection Man (1998) Marc Evans’ Resurrection Man, a 1998 film produced by English director Michael Winterbottom and Revolution Films, is more faithful to the real life of the Shankill Butcher’s leader, Lenny Murphy. However, the name of the gang is changed to the ‘Resurrection Men’ and Murphy’s name is changed to the equally Catholic sounding ‘Victor Kelly’. A Catholic-­ sounding surname would become a contentious issue for both Murphy in

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real life and Victor (Stuart Townsend) in the film. Like the gang in O’Sullivan’s film, Victor’s gang terrorise the Belfast streets and choose random Catholics to torture and kill. Whereas in Nothing Personal it is the British Army with whom the paramilitaries collude, in a series of events much more in keeping with events in the real life of Lenny Murphy, Victor meets his end after seemingly being set up by fellow loyalists to be killed by the IRA. The loyalist gang are also more heinous than the gang in O’Sullivan’s film and are completely bereft of any redeeming qualities; they are presented throughout as psychotic, power-hungry and revelling in their own abject reputation. This can most clearly be identified in a scene where Victor and two members of his gang, Ivan (Gerard McCartney) and Willie (Michael Liebmann), discuss how their killing has been reported by the media. Willie: Did you see the news, Victor! Did you fucking see it! Ivan: We’re fucking famous, so we are. Willie: ‘Brutal sectarian killing. Not claimed by any organisation.’ But we are an organisation! The fucking Famous Five organisation. Ivan: They never said ‘carving’, Victor. They just said ‘beat to death’ and all that but they never said ‘cut’. Victor: They’ll say it.

On occasion the gang can also be seen to be attracted to far-right ideology and Nazi memorabilia. When they eventually turn on Victor after he kills a young loyalist who he claims is an informer without any evidence, their motivation for doing so seems born much less out of sympathy for his victims and more out of fear that they may be next to experience his wrath. As with the loyalists in Nothing Personal and noticeably mirroring Kenny’s attire in particular, Victor is depicted as being more stylish and urban than republicans generally seen in cinema.3 He sports fashionable sideburns and is always attired in a long black coat, leather jacket, tight-­ fitted jumper or large collared shirt. According to Hill, the casting of Victor can be seen as a further departure from traditions of representation due to the fact that Townsend “undoubtedly runs Brad Pitt a close second as the best-looking paramilitary in ‘troubles’ cinema” (Hill 2006: 207). 3  Unlike Nothing Personal, there are no republican paramilitaries depicted in the film to compare representations.

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Unlike the motivation for casting Pitt in The Devil’s Own, which could be understood as an attempt to romanticise the character and his motivations, the casting of Townsend is seemingly done to highlight the psychosexual dysfunction of the character. Despite Victor being an attractive, stylish man whom both males and females gravitate towards (on one occasion he and another male loyalist appear sexually attracted to each other), he is most interested in his overbearing mother, Dorcas (Brenda Fricker), with whom he seems to have an almost incestuous relationship. Baker believes that Victor’s peculiar relations with his mother, in one of many possible homages identifiable in the film, recalls the Oedipal issues at the heart of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960) and explains: Mother and son are witnessed dancing, embracing and exchanging romantic dialogue from old films, the sexuality of their relations confirmed by the mother’s jealous dismissal of Heather [Victor’s girlfriend] […] In this way Resurrection Man employs a loyalist killer to reflect upon warped psycho-­ sexual desires, with nothing to say about the politics of loyalism, its ideals or its motivations. (Baker 2004: 79)

Furthermore, Dorcas’ admiration for her son and the characteristics she bestows upon him when discussing him markedly contrasts with her description of her husband who she often admonishes for being “backward and shy”. This psycho-sexual dysfunction can also be seen to manifest in the violence that Victor inflicts on his victims and his acts of torture can often be perceived to provide him a form of sexual release.4 This can be identified best in a scene where he cuts into a Catholic man’s throat in a pub toilet after the man pleads with him to kill him so as his torture will end. Reminiscent of ejaculation, the blood spurting onto the mirror above the sink provides relief for both killer and victim. Furthermore, the teasing of his victims to the extent that they beg for the release of death is, according to his girlfriend, Heather (Geraldine O’Rawe), a method he employs during sex as well. She tells the journalist, Ryan (James Nesbitt), who investigates Victor: “He’d tease you, he’d make you wait until you were all, like, please, Victor, hurry up, I can’t stand it.” Fidelma Farley explains, “The film implies that Victor finds the same pleasurable elements of 4  The television film, The Grasscutter (Mune, 1989), a co-production between Central Television and New Zealand Television, is another film where loyalist paramilitarism is linked to psycho-sexual dysfunction and even incest.

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physical intimacy, control, submission and release in both sex and murder” (Farley 2001: 211). However, Heather’s use of words here could also be seen to imply that their relationship may not in fact have been consummated; this understanding is also supported by the lack of visible intimacy between the couple when they are seen together on screen. Victor’s relationship with his father, James (George Shane), is also presented very differently to how relationships between republican fathers and sons are generally depicted in film. Farley explains that a recurring feature of films from an Irish nationalist perspective is the representation of violence as a legacy that is passed from father to son through either a desire to please their fathers or father figures, or to avenge their deaths (Farley 2001: 203). This can also be seen to offer legitimacy and a historical perspective to their motives and is exemplified in The Devil’s Own as the protagonist seeks revenge for his father’s death. Farley also identifies this theme in earlier films such as Captain Boycott (Launder, 1946) and The Gentle Gunman (Deardon, 1952). In Resurrection Man, however, Victor is distant from his father and is resentful of him for having a Catholic-sounding surname, an example of self-loathing which can also be understood to underpin his hatred of Catholics. Martin McLoone notes, “[G]iven that this irrational pleasure for Catholic blood is a response to his own Catholic father, then each atrocity he commits is both an act of symbolic patricide and demonstration of self-loathing” (McLoone 2000: 82). Cécile Bazin also argues that Victor wishes to prove that he is a Protestant and display his loyalty to his community in the manner he does precisely because he feels like an outcast. She notes, “He reinvents himself with each horrific murder and in the process, makes a name for himself within the Loyalist community and an identity within the Loyalist supremacy of the reign of terror […] Each murder is for him a step in his quest for identity” (Bazin 2013). As the film progresses, and Victor becomes more ruthless—in what could be considered another metaphor for how violence begets violence— he can be seen to resemble a vampire and becomes more pale-skinned and cadaverous. He also dons a long black coat reminiscent of previous screen depictions of vampires and seeks out his victims at night guiding the car’s driver from the backseat with his eyes closed seemingly relying on bat-like navigational skills. His failure later to properly guide the driver away from dead-ends can be seen to correspond with his demise. On the odd occasion that he is seen in daylight, he is either shooting upwards towards the sun or being killed in a hail of bullets which is reminiscent of the theatrical

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expiry of vampires when they are exposed to sunlight. Borrowing specifically from Irish writer Bram Stoker’s Dracula, first published in 1897, like Stoker’s Dracula, Victor is also an outsider; in Resurrection Man, Victor’s ‘othering’ is confirmed by the suspicion that his father is a Catholic or a “Taig” and the comment by Heather that he “looks like a foreigner”. The surrounding mise-en-scène also becomes increasingly gothic in nature and the bathhouse, appropriately named the Tombe Street Bathhouse, where Victor carries out his most heinous murder—that of fellow loyalist, Darkie Larche (John Hannah)—is particularly spectral. This idea that Victor has transformed or become possessed is reinforced by his mother’s claim that she thought he “was a ghost” in the film’s concluding sequence where Victor shaves his paralysed father before being killed as he exits the house. This transformation that Victor undergoes makes the shaving of his father notably tense as he has now become a vampire-like character who might not be able to resist his thirst for blood and in offering to help his mother by shaving his helpless father, Victor uses the menacing phrase, “I’ll do him”. The most obvious difference between Nothing Personal and Resurrection Man is the creation of the environment in which the gang is located. In Resurrection Man, society is depicted as being wholly infirm and corrupted; there is also no ‘feminine break’ to the violence as can be identified in Nothing Personal. This can be understood as the film implicating the wider unionist community in the gang’s depravity. Hill explains, “Whereas previous films had sought to counterpose the world of destructive violence to the ‘normality’ of home and family, Resurrection Man portrays a world of all-encompassing gloom and guilt by association” (Hill 2006: 206). Gary Mitchell also makes this point when he contends: I am not suggesting that the Shankill Butchers, depicted here as idiotic, homosexual drug addicts, should have been given better treatment. It wasn’t what this film said about those men that I found offensive, but what it said—or did not say—about the Protestant community from which they came. (Mitchell 1998)

This proves further problematic given the film’s successful appropriating of other films and genres to illustrate the diseased nature of the characters’ environment. In fact, as well as horror, the film borrows heavily from the gangster genre: the film’s narrative—the rise and fall of a gangster who is doted upon by his mother—is specifically influenced by the pre-code crime

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film The Public Enemy (Wellman, 1931) which at the beginning of the film is watched in the cinema by a young Victor. Indeed, the film’s writer Eoin McNamee expands on this particular influence when he states: I want people to engage with the character of Victor Kelly, and as James Cagney did, take you on a personal journey into hell. I expect them to be moved and to be able to empathise with the characters. I don’t want them to feel they are going to a worthy movie about a political situation, because that’s not what it is. […] It’s about men and violence. There’s a bit of Victor in all of us. (McNamee 1998)

Resurrection Man’s desire to show that, as with Tom Powers (James Cagney) in The Public Enemy, the surrounding social landscape is in part responsible for the protagonist’s crimes has almost certainly led to the film being mistaken as a commentary on how the wider unionist community is somehow responsible for the crimes committed by the Shankill Butchers. The surrounding social landscape being in part responsible for the protagonist’s crimes is an idea expressed literally in the film in a telephone exchange between the journalist, Ryan (James Nesbitt), and paramilitary leader, McClure (Seán McGinley). Attempting to discredit the claim that his insatiable fascination with Victor and desire to make him famous has in some way instigated events, the journalist claims that he is not responsible for what happened only for McClure to counter, “It’s everybody’s responsibility”. Like other more abstract examples, whether this piece of dialogue is a reference to a collective responsibility of all in society or just those from the unionist side of Northern Ireland’s divide is left up for interpretation. A desire to show the environment that Victor inhabits as being diseased is one justification for the film’s approach, but nevertheless the impression cultivated as a result—that society and therefore unionism in general is somehow responsible—is problematic. One example where an audience could discern this can be identified in the “romper room” scene, one of the film’s most brutal sequences in which Victor murders a random Catholic man in a loyalist bar. Despite the title possibly recalling more innocent associations, the term “romper room” comes from the practice known as “rompering” which characterised a number of sectarian murders by loyalists in the early years of the Troubles. Firstly, the man is chosen at random, grabbed from the street by Victor’s gang and paraded around the bar for its patrons to kick and punch at will. This scene is made much more

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disturbing than similar torture scenes in Nothing Personal and the audience is made to feel increasingly uncomfortable through the choice of music used as an upbeat track (‘Tiger Feet’ by Mud) is juxtaposed, Tarantino-like, with the brutality of the visuals. What is also particularly disturbing about the scene is that all of the pub’s patrons can be seen to actively participate in the murder, often winking at each other, slapping each other on the back and laughing as they take turns punching and kicking the Catholic man. Baker also emphasises the misogynistic nature of those carrying out the violence. He notes: Significantly the scene includes a distinctly misogynistic form of banter. As one assailant declares loudly to one of his accomplices: ‘Here, Hacksaw, you can come round my place anytime, give the wife one of them kicks.’ The association of the victim with a woman suggests that he is being inferiorised by the aggressive assertion of communal masculinity. The Catholic man is taking a beating ‘like a woman’ because women ‘take’ beatings. Masculinity in this instance is defined by, and depends upon, the ability to give such a beating. (Baker 2004: 82)

No one in the busy pub intervenes to stop the Catholic man’s torture; in comparison, similar scenes in Nothing Personal and the television film As the Beast Sleeps (Bradbeer, 2001) where loyalist paramilitaries are seen torturing people in pubs take place in pubs that are deserted or after hours without any witnesses, implicating no one further in the gangs’ actions. Furthermore, Heather is also present in the pub and is seen smiling at Victor when he walks in with the abducted Catholic man. Blonde, voluptuous and morally ambiguous, Heather, in a further homage to The Public Enemy, resembles a love interest in the 1931 film called Gwen played by Jean Harlow. Later, she also looks flirtatiously at Victor as he sits threateningly over the unconscious man’s body wielding a knife. Hill suggests that Heather’s sexual arousal at Victor’s deeds suggests there is “no clear separation within the film between Victor’s violence and the surrounding social landscape, which itself has fallen victim to moral ambiguity and psycho-sexual confusion” (Hill 2006: 206). Unlike the ‘feminine break’ in violence that accompanies the presence of women in Nothing Personal, no such break occurs in Resurrection Man; in fact, women can be seen to be attracted to and apologists for Victor’s violence. Whereas family traditionally offers a sanctuary from politics and violence in ‘Troubles cinema’, here it is argued to be the very source of

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Victor’s cruelty. This is most clearly exemplified by Victor’s mother, Dorcas. When discussing her son with Ryan after Victor’s death she appears affronted by the idea that his upbringing was responsible for his behaviour seemingly before the issue is even raised, preferring instead to continue in her role as apologist by seeing her son as a victim. The film’s name implies some association with the undead, strengthening the film’s vampiric overtones but it can also be seen to have religious connotations, reinforced by the tolling church bells heard ringing in the film’s beginning and end title sequences. In fact, the music also incorporates the sound of a snare drum, a traditional instrument used by proudly Protestant loyalist bands. The treating of the religion to which the majority of unionists subscribe in the film could also be seen to imply a further implicating of the unionist community in the actions of the gang. The loyalist paramilitary leader, McClure, who is present in the bar at the time of the Catholic man’s murder, is first seen in the film as a Protestant street preacher quoting the Bible to passers-by as Victor walks past. Upon seeing Victor, McLure points at him demandingly and declares, “And I say unto the brethren, hear the words of the Lord. Will you be saved, or will you be damned?” Being ‘saved’ in this context is a reference to becoming a member of the reformed Protestant faith and is something which Victor’s father warns him about later in the film by saying, “I seen you down in the city centre watching them preachers, you better mind yourself, you’ll end up saved, so you will.” By having a member of a sadistic paramilitary gang and a confidant to whom Victor confesses his most heinous desires representing Protestant preachers the implication is that Protestant fundamentalism and being ‘saved’ could lead to engagement in sectarian violence. This can be seen as yet another example of how in the film’s attempt to depict Victor’s social surroundings as infirm it could also be seen as incorporating the wider unionist community in the ruthless gang’s actions.

Other Depictions of Loyalist Paramilitaries at This Time Loyalist paramilitaries appear in Joe Comerford’s 1993 film High Boot Benny (Comerford, 1993), although typically the depiction is brief. Like Comerford’s other films, High Boot Benny exemplifies the New Irish Cinema movement as it presents a gloomy and critical image of Ireland. The film’s narrative follows the events that happen after the discovery of a

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police informant’s body in a boarding school situated near the Irish border. As in Neil Jordan’s Angel, the loyalist paramilitary gang are found to be led by a police interrogator (David McBlain) who colludes with them in the brutal murder of the school’s headmistress and her lover. High Boot Benny also implicates the British Army in the collusion as soldiers can be seen to opt not to help the wounded when they come across them and turn a blind eye to the police interrogator’s actions. When he pleads with them to check with their commanding officer—who he claims knew about the attack and wanted it to go ahead but not be implicated—the soldiers respond by asking him the identity of the men he has brought with him to carry out the attack. He explains that he has brought the men across the border to do the job. Understanding this to mean loyalist paramilitaries, the soldier responds by saying, “You loyalists are staying with us. We’re coming out of this with some credit.” The police interrogator then takes off and the fate of the loyalist paramilitaries is unknown. This scene is watched by the film’s young protagonist, Benny (Marc O’Shea), and at the film’s end this event and ostensibly the exposure to high-level collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and the security services can be seen to motivate him to break out of the isolation with which he has tried to protect himself and join a republican paramilitary group. Loyalist paramilitaries get slightly more screen time in Frank Kerr’s low-budget North American production, Patriots (Kerr, 1994) which was released in 1994. The film is unique as it is an American production that depicts both loyalist paramilitaries and a Protestant civilian.5 The narrative follows an American woman (Linda Amendola) with a romanticised republican view of the conflict in Ireland as she comes to Belfast to help with the struggle for Irish freedom only to be tricked by the IRA into taking a bomb with her into UFF (Ulster Freedom Fighters, a wing of the UDA) headquarters. She is told that the UFF had “butchered up a pub in West Belfast not so long ago” and that “the bastards would do anything, including killing innocent Catholics to keep the six counties British”. The use of the word “butchered” here is significant given the connection with the heinous crimes of the Shankill Butchers. Receiving a last-minute tip-­ off from a sympathetic IRA man, she makes a getaway before the bomb explodes and the IRA fire at the remaining, wounded UFF members. The 5  Despite being unique in this regard, the film’s plot bears a significant resemblance to an earlier 1979 film directed by Tony Luraschi called The Outsider (Luraschi, 1979), except the male protagonist is female.

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rest of the film follows her as she attempts to evade both republican and loyalist paramilitaries—however, she only ever engages with republicans from this point on—taking refuge on one occasion with a Protestant civilian woman who supports a united Ireland but resents “being bombed into it”. Loyalist paramilitaries have brief cameos in two films released during this time made as a result of Jim Sheridan and former Irish republican prisoner Terry George’s collaboration, Some Mother’s Son and The Boxer. Some Mother’s Son’s narrative revolves around the 1981 republican hunger strike in the Maze prison and follows the mothers of two of the striking prisoners. Loyalist paramilitary collusion with security services is briefly hinted at when unidentified masked gunmen enter one of their homes and open fire, only for the security services to arrive on the scene moments later to find and arrest the women’s sons. As in previous films such as Angel, it is again difficult to ascertain whether these gunmen are loyalist, and it is largely left up to a knowledgeable audience to make the connection. Later, a more obvious presentation of a unionist—identifiable by his cry of “Fenian bastards”—does little to redeem unionism’s abject reputation in cinema as they can be seen throwing urine in the face of an anxiety stricken Kathleen (Helen Mirren) as she reluctantly protests in support of her son. Like Nothing Personal and Resurrection Man, The Boxer is another example of “Ceasefire Cinema” given that it comments on the ongoing peace process at the time and also explores the theme of the most extreme elements of a paramilitary organisation needing to be destroyed from within for peace to be achieved; except this time it is an unruly republican commander (Gerard McSorely) who needs to be eliminated. The film’s protagonist, Danny Flynn (Daniel Day-Lewis), is a former IRA member who tries to rebuild his life in his old Belfast neighbourhood after spending 14 years in jail. Pettitt describes the character of Danny as representing “another in a long line of principled IRA men in Irish cinema who try to move on from the violence of the past” (Pettitt 2000: 280). Frequent use of claustrophobic mise-en-scène is used throughout the film to emphasise the confined spaces in which the protagonists live. This sense of enclosure is sustained even when Danny and his love interest, Maggie (Emily Watson), seek to evade the attention of those from their own community by crossing the peace line and entering a loyalist area. It is at this point that a brief depiction of loyalist paramilitaries can be identified as Danny and Maggie are warned by some benevolent person from

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the area who has identified Danny that a gang of loyalist paramilitaries in a car nearby are watching them. The man covertly warns them, “Don’t look now but there’s a car behind you and the last Catholic boy who was in that car didn’t die a happy death … so I’ll walk you to the peace line together”. The paramilitaries are only seen from a distance but the brief shot of their car finds it situated with surrounding mise-en-scène that emphasises how dangerous the area is for Danny and Maggie such as red, white and blue kerbstones and a UFF mural. As they retreat to safer territory the car can be seen to follow them, menacingly moving towards the camera.

Presence and Absence in the ‘Martin Cahill Films’: The General (1998) and Ordinary Decent Criminal (2000) Loyalist paramilitaries make another brief cameo in John Boorman’s 1998 film, The General (Boorman, 1998). Having produced Neil Jordan’s Angel, this was the second film Boorman was involved in to have depicted loyalist paramilitaries (Pettitt 2000: 274). The General also depicts collusion in Ireland but rather than depicting British state forces colluding with loyalist paramilitaries in the murder of innocent civilians, The General hints at collusion between the Garda Síochána (the police service of the Republic of Ireland) and the IRA in the real life 1994 killing of the notorious Dublin criminal, Martin Cahill. Loyalist paramilitaries appear when Cahill (Brendan Gleeson) attempts to offload stolen paintings to the UVF who plan to fence the paintings to pay for arms from South Africa. Cahill and his right-hand man, Noel Curley (Adrian Dunbar), first discuss the possibility of selling the paintings to the UVF as they ride on a motorcycle. Cahill: Curley: Cahill: Curley: Cahill: Curley: Cahill:

Had another offer. From who? Ulster Volunteer Force. Oh my Jesus, don’t go messing with them lads. Why not? Cause they are a bunch of loyalist paramilitary butchering fucking bastards, that’s why. Aw I don’t give a fuck about them or the IRA. Anyway, it’s the only genuine offer I got.

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Curley’s impassioned response to the prospect of meeting with the UVF infuses their introduction into the world of the film with an element of excitement and danger. No such furore surrounded the introduction of the IRA earlier in the film and their presence on the streets of Dublin— with the exception of the character’s northern accents—is presented as being nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, the IRA can be seen on one occasion to be as much a part of Dublin society that they are able to whip up public opinion against Cahill by accusing his crew of dealing drugs. As in Patriots, Curley’s use of the word “butchering” is again significant given the connection with the heinous crimes of the Shankill Butchers which were explored in detail elsewhere in cinema at this time. Though Catholic, Cahill is also wholly apolitical and as such has no problem doing business with the UVF as can be understood in his attempt to alleviate Curley’s concerns. Another of Cahill’s underlings, Gary (Seán McGinley), reinforces the idea that the UVF present a challenge to the film’s protagonists unlike anything they had thus far come up against; on discovering the meeting place is in a dark underground sewer, he nervously loads a gun and exclaims, “Is this it? If you don’t mind me saying Martin, I don’t like it.” The setting of this scene is appropriate as the underground sewer location presents the UVF as otherworldly and intruding on the world of the film by stealth. Chiaroscuro lighting is also used as the UVF members are often seen only in silhouette which adds a sense of mystery to their presence. This is aided by the fact that the film—although shot in colour—was released in black and white owing to Boorman’s belief that it was a way of revealing and would result in audiences looking at “contemporary Ireland in a slightly different way” (Sheehy 1998). The gang’s leader moves into the light in typical film noir style as he begins to converse with Cahill. UVF leader: Cahill: UVF leader: Cahill: UVF leader: Cahill:

Are you a republican, Cahill? Criminal. What are yous? Loyalist. Aw … I’m into loyalty. Loyal to what? The Queen. Great. I identify with her. Her ancestors tortured and murdered and grabbed every bleeding thing they could, and she doesn’t pay any taxes. She’s my hero.

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Cahill firmly asserts his apolitical status again as he sees himself as nothing other than a criminal, however, this does become somewhat complicated by his rather republican view of the monarchy apparent in his joke that the Queen is his hero because she reminds him of himself. His question, “Loyal to what?” can be considered a flippant joke used to undermine and aggravate those to whom he negotiates but the line can also be seen as an engagement with the contradictions at the heart of unionism. This brief questioning as to what loyalism is loyal to can be seen to allude to the complicated nature of the unionist identity, the oppositional nature of unionism and the fact that unionism has, in reality, rarely been obedient and loyal to the British establishment. Although a brief moment in the film, this interchange hints at a greater awareness of the nature of unionism than has generally been seen in cinema. Despite the fear that the UVF instils in Cahill’s lackeys, the film also can be seen to suggest that the UVF’s reputation precedes them, as they are ultimately easily manipulated and somewhat incompetent. Cahill is never intimidated by the UVF and shows them nothing but disrespect at all times. Furthermore, he is irreverent to them by trusting them, perhaps naively, to pay him once they’ve authenticated the paintings on the basis that if they do not, he will inform on them to the Queen. Later, Cahill learns that shortly after his meeting with them the men are swiftly arrested by the Gardaí and the paintings uncovered. This event and the UVF’s inability to escape Garda attention would precipitate, as in real life, Cahill’s demise as he would eventually be killed by the IRA allegedly as punishment for doing business with loyalist paramilitaries (McDonald 2003). The Hollywood production, Ordinary Decent Criminal (O’Sullivan, 2000), directed by Thaddeus O’Sullivan, is another film influenced by the life of Cahill. However, in what could be considered a reflection of Hollywood’s relationship with unionism, unlike both Boorman’s film and another British television film about Cahill’s exploits and killing titled Vicious Circle (Blair, 1999), the film omits Cahill’s association with loyalist paramilitaries entirely. In fact, instead of attempting to offload the painting (it is one painting in this film rather than several) to the UVF, in O’Sullivan’s film, it is the IRA that wishes to obtain it. This substitution of loyalists for republicans could be seen as a manifestation of cinema’s preference for stories about nationalism; however, it is not the only major departure in the film from Cahill’s real life. The main character being renamed ‘Michael Lynch’ and surviving at the end of the film are

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examples of how the film is noticeably less faithful to real events in other ways as well. In fact, the project—based on Paul Williams’ book The General: Godfather of Crime (1995)—that led to Boorman’s film being produced was originally supposed to be directed by O’Sullivan only for him to give up on it, turn his attention to a less faithful retelling of Cahill’s life and put the original project back on the market for it to be picked up by Boorman. O’Sullivan explains that the restrictions in adapting real stories turned him off a faithful adaptation citing both Nothing Personal and a biopic on John Gotti titled Witness to the Mob (O’Sullivan, 1998) that he had directed as a reason why he did not want to work within such restrictions again (Dwyer 2000). He states: I felt that the people I’d been dealing with in Nothing Personal were as close as I ever wanted to get to making a piece of naturalism about the gangster world. I didn’t want to go into that territory again. I didn’t want to make a film that needs to be as truthful about Cahill. I would never stand by Ordinary Decent Criminal as a representation of the Dublin underworld. (Ibid.)

Despite O’Sullivan’s insistence on wanting to avoid naturalism, the film is not short on political detail. It is also difficult not to think that the omission of loyalist paramilitaries is, in part, a commercially sensible decision given Hollywood seemingly has more confidence in films about the IRA and the film needed to recoup its sizeable $10 million budget. O’Sullivan has admitted that the casting of Kevin Spacey as the Cahill-type character, Lynch, was with this necessity in mind (Ibid.). The director’s interest previously in films about unionists as evidenced by December Bride and Nothing Personal makes the omission even more remarkable and lends further weight to the claim that the decision may have been due to commercial pressures.

Conclusion Loyalist paramilitaries can clearly be seen to dominate representations of unionism at this time. Further insights can also be developed from this dominance; connections to mainstream unionism, as seen previously, such as the Orange Order and democratic unionist politics, are almost entirely absent. Unionists are also identified much more by the explicitly political

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rather than engagement with expressions of cultural identity. This is naturally going to result in less empathetic portrayals, particularly when the explicitly political is expressed through engagement with paramilitarism. As can be evidenced by the rather vociferous criticism of films to depict unionists, a stark contrast can be identified between how cinematic depictions of both sides of Northern Ireland’s political divide were being received at this time. Republican violence still allowed for empathy—and in some cases glorification—for those inflicting the violence, loyalist violence seemingly did not. Furthermore, a cinematic deficit can be seen to continue not only in regard to depictions being less favourable but also less frequent and commercially sensible than depictions of Irish nationalists; O’Sullivan’s film, Ordinary Decent Criminal, exemplifies this by substituting the IRA for loyalist paramilitaries. However, explanations and indeed justifications for the portrayal of unionists in cinema at this time being dominated by depictions of violent loyalist paramilitaries exist. Progress in the peace process allowed for the freedom to explore subjects that had not yet been explored in cinema before, such as the Shankill Butchers and the worst of paramilitary violence. As previously discussed in the introduction, loyalist violence is often perceived as being more heinous than republican violence which results in loyalist violence having the capacity, when explored in cinema, to be depicted as more horrific with this potentiality increased yet again when films explore the Shankill Butchers. There was also perhaps an increased awareness of loyalism’s tendency to revel in its own abject reputation which seemed to consequently discourage any engagement with the politics of loyalism or its motivations. In turn, this made it easier for loyalist paramilitaries to be presented as mere gangsters or bloodthirsty vampire-­ like characters of the type that appeared in the films that Nothing Personal and Resurrection Man noticeably wished to appropriate. In many ways, both Nothing Personal and Resurrection Man can be seen to reinforce patterns of representation. Both films implicate— although perhaps not intentionally—the wider unionist community in the savagery of its most extreme fringe and there is a clear de-contextualising of unionism apparent as a focus is placed instead on the exploration of violent masculinity. As well as this, the films conform to the theme of inbuilt fatalism seen in earlier films and of Ireland being depicted as an inherently violent place where the cause of violence is due to something innate within the Irish psyche.

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The films also break with patterns of representation in a number of ways. Loyalist paramilitaries, and therefore unionism, whether it is appreciated or not, are very much at the centre of both films and do not feature as an adjunct to narratives about Irish nationalism as is typical. As the main characters are paramilitaries they are also, by definition, not depicted as the typically obedient unionist or as militarised figures in uniform, although this is complicated somewhat in Nothing Personal by both the absence of police in pursuit of Kenny’s gang and the visible collusion and congenial relationship between Leonard and the British Army at the film’s conclusion. Resurrection Man never depicts loyalist paramilitaries as anything other than antagonising to the state to which it claims to belong and this is perhaps most obviously illustrated by the paramilitary gang’s penchant for Nazi memorabilia. The casting of youthful, attractive and female actors as unionist characters also breaks from the pattern seen in earlier films of unionists being depicted as male and ageing. It is also worth noting that both Nothing Personal and Resurrection Man differ significantly. O’Sullivan’s film, due principally to it creating a contrast between the public world of violence and masculinity and the private world of domesticity and family, is more inductive to generating empathy. Indeed, some of the unionist characters in Nothing Personal, such as Leonard, Ann and Tommy, could be considered as some of the most empathetic portrayals of unionists committed to screen. An analysis of the ending of Resurrection Man also highlights a divergence from typical portrayals as loyalist paramilitary leader, McClure, sets up Victor to be killed by presumably local unnamed masked men. This is unusual as it suggests that an end to violence in Northern Ireland can come from within the region itself. In contrast, like many films that went before, such as Nothing Personal, it is British state intervention that is required to bring the narrative to a close and an end to the violence. Examples of departures from patterns of representation in the other films analysed in this chapter are less numerous. The films generally reinforce traditions of representation, with the influence of the Shankill Butchers on depictions again found to be significant.

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References Baker, Stephen. 2004. Vampire Troubles: Loyalism and Resurrection Man. In Keeping It Real: Irish Film and Television. London: Wallflower Press. Bazin, Cécile. 2013. Images of the Protestants in Northern Ireland: A Cinematic Deficit or an Exclusive Image of Psychopaths? In Media: The French Journal of Media Studies. Connelly, Mark. 2012. The IRA on Film and Television. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company. Dillon, Martin. 1990. The Shankill Butchers, A Case Study of Mass Murder. London: Arrow. Dwyer, Ciara. 2000. A Caper Through Dublin’s Underworld. Irish Independent. Accessed 5 October 2022. https://www.independent.ie/woman/celeb-­ news/a-­caper-­through-­dublins-­underworld-­26252880.html. Farley, Fidelma. 2001. In the Name of the Father: Masculinity and Fatherhood in Contemporary Northern Irish Films. Irish Studies Review 9: 203–213. Farrington, Christopher. 2009. Unionism and the Belfast Agreement. In The Northern Ireland Question. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Hill, John. 2006. Cinema and Northern Ireland. London: British Film Institute. Linehan, Hugh. 1996a. Green on the Screen Makes a Critic See Red. Irish Times. Accessed 5 October 2022. https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/ green-­on-­the-­screen-­makes-­a-­critic-­see-­red-­1.50290. ———. 1996b. Personal about Violence. Irish Times. Accessed 5 October 2022. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/personal-­about-­violence-­1.46202. Lyttle, John, 1998. Film: Deafened by Ulster’s Primal Scream. The Independent. Accessed 5 October 2022. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-­style/film-­ deafened-­by-­ulster-­s-­primal-­scream-­1141662.html. McDonald, Henry. 2003. Film Sheds Light on Cahill Death. The Guardian. Accessed 5 October 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jul/13/ world.film. McIlroy, Brian. 2001. Shooting to Kill: Filmmaking and the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. 2nd ed. Richmond, BC: Steveston Press. McKittrick, David. 1994. Endgame: The Search for Peace in Northern Ireland. Belfast: Blackstaff. McLoone, Martin. 2000. Irish Film, The Emergence of a Contemporary Cinema. London: British Film Institute. McNamee, Eoin. 1994. Resurrection Man. London: Picador. ———. 1998. Resurrection Man: Production Notes. Dublin: Irish Film Institute Library. Melaugh, Martin. 2019. A Chronology of the Conflict—1993. CAIN Archive. Accessed 5 October 2022. https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/events/peace/ pp8893.htm.

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Mitchell, Gary. 1998. Red White and Very Blue. Irish Times, March 27, 1998. Mornin, Daniel. 1991. All Our Fault. London: Hutchinson. Mullan, Ciaran. 2019. Joint Declaration on Peace: The Downing Street Declaration, Wednesday 15 December 1993. CAIN Archive. Accessed 5 October 2022. https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/events/peace/docs/dsd151293.htm. Newby, Lucy, and Fearghus Roulston. 2019. Innocent Victims and Troubled Combatants. In Representing Agency in Popular Culture: Children and Youth on Page, Screen and In Between. London: Lexington Books. O’Connell, Dióg. 2004. The Boy from Mercury: Educating Emotionally through Universal Storytelling. In Keeping It Real: Irish Film and Television. London: Wallflower Press. Pettitt, Lance. 2000. Screening Ireland: Film and Television Representation. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Rockett, Emer. 2005. Ordinary Decent Criminal. In The Cinema of Britain and Ireland. London: Wallflower Press. Sheehy, Ted. 1998. General Boorman. Film Ireland, June–July 1998. Stoker, Bram. 1897. Dracula. Westminster: Constable & Co. Walker, Alexander. 1998. Resurrection Man. Evening Standard. January 29, 1998. Williams, Paul. 1995. The General: Godfather of Crime. Dublin: O’Brien Press.

CHAPTER 5

The ‘Troubles Comedy’ and Unionism

In the period after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, five comedies set in Northern Ireland made it onto cinema screens: Divorcing Jack (Caffrey, 1998), Wild About Harry (Lowney, 2000), An Everlasting Piece (Levinson, 2000), The Most Fertile Man in Ireland (Appleton, 2000) and Mad about Mambo (Forte, 2000). Generally, these films presented an optimistic view of Northern Ireland, achieved by including protagonists that have nothing to do with politics or the political past and by mostly dealing irreverently with the old agents of violence, specifically the paramilitaries. Debbie Ging notes: Viewed in the (post)modern context of celebrity chefs, strippergrams, marital problems and fertility clinics, those still mired in the political conflict appear as comically dangerous throwbacks to a darker, more hysterical era, while becoming a good or modern man seems to require a complete disavowal, circumvention or forgetting of the Northern Ireland political situation. (Ging 2013: 146)

Despite this focus on more jovial aspects of life in Northern Ireland, what unionist representation there was at this time was almost entirely confined to ‘Troubles comedy’ and this chapter will seek to analyse how traditions of representation might have altered in this new dispensation. Given that the other comedies focus almost entirely on either Irish nationalist characters or characters whose politics and identity are not disclosed, three films © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Gallagher, Screening Ulster, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23436-1_5

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that significantly depict unionist characters and themes, Divorcing Jack, The Most Fertile Man in Ireland and An Everlasting Piece, will be analysed in detail. Several reasons exist for this move towards comedy. Although the optimism of the time may have been premature, the paramilitary ceasefires and the signing of the Good Friday Agreement led to a sense that the worst of the conflict in Ireland may have been over. This offered filmmakers the freedom to explore comedy, which may have come as a welcome relief given that dramas set in Northern Ireland were seen to have become stale and predictable. John Hill explains: While the conventions of ‘troubles’ drama were becoming increasingly recognisable (and predictable), it was difficult to turn the conflict into comic matter so long as the violence continued. With the onset of the ceasefires however, a comic take on the ‘troubles’, and ‘troubles’ drama, became increasingly feasible. (Hill 2006: 210)

An influence on this move towards comedy was perhaps the success of the television film Two Ceasefires and a Wedding (Butcher, 1995) that was broadcast on BBC Northern Ireland in 1995; the film was made by the comedy team ‘The Hole in the Wall Gang’ and would evolve into the long-running television series Give My Head Peace (1998–present). The film is set immediately before and after the 1994 ceasefires and, like the later television series, often seeks to parody many of the practices that have traditionally governed dramas set in Northern Ireland such as the ‘love across the barricades romance’. Another influence was the commercial success of British ‘political comedies’ in the late 1990s, namely Trainspotting (Boyle, 1996) and The Full Monty (Cattaneo, 1997). The films’ low budgets and box-office success on both sides of the Atlantic can be seen to have led to a renewed interest in this type of film. Baker also suggests there may be a more pernicious reason behind this metamorphosis in screen depictions of Northern Ireland. He argues: Casting off Northern Ireland’s atrocious image and reputation has been a priority for policy makers in the region. Once better known for violent sectarian conflict and a reliance on a substantial subvention from the British exchequer, there is today a determined attempt to present Northern Ireland in a more affirmative light by rebranding it as politically stable, ‘open for business’ and competitive in the global free market. To this end, film has

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played a largely complimentary role in the makeover of the region and its citizens. (Baker 2016: 175)

As will be identified with a close reading of the films analysed in this chapter, film can certainly be understood to have begun to dutifully comply during this period. Many of the films present a more positive and domesticated depiction of Northern Ireland than seen previously. A decidedly irreverent approach to the ‘men of violence’, which characterised so many of the ‘Trouble’s comedies’, can certainly be understood to have also helped cast off the reputation of unceasing conflict associated with the region. This was also generally a period of prosperity for indigenous filmmaking in Northern Ireland. Hill explains, “filmmaking in Northern Ireland only really gathered momentum in the 1990s, when, in the span of a few short years, more Northern Ireland features were made than in the previous seventy” (Hill 2005: 227). As well as benefitting from a new political environment, filmmakers also benefitted from new financial support for local film productions. Lance Pettitt explains that this increase in finance for local film productions was the result of several factors, among which was the fact that in July 1997 the Northern Ireland Film Council (NIFC) became a higher profile commission, with a remit to receive and channel funds amounting to £4 million from a range of sources. These sources included the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the National Lottery Arts Fund and government departments for economic development and education in Northern Ireland. The NIFC also received funding from the European Union for ‘Peace and Reconciliation’ that was matched with funding from the British government (Pettitt 2000: 253). The NIFC would be later renamed the Northern Ireland Film and Television Commission and eventually Northern Ireland Screen. The organisation would prove to be instrumental in the region gaining an element of autonomy over screen depictions that had been previously lacking. At this time, it is also notable that—owing to the BBCNI commanding the largest single source of finance on the island of Ireland for fiction film—most films were also co-produced with the involvement of the organisation (Ibid.). Only one film not of the comedy genre depicts unionists in the aftermath of the Good Friday Agreement. With or Without You (Winterbottom, 1999) is a romantic drama produced by Film Four and directed by Michael Winterbottom (who also played a role in producing Resurrection Man). The film follows the lives of a couple from a unionist background, Rosie

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(Dervla Kirwan) and Vincent (Christopher Eccleston), as they pursue medical help in conceiving a child. The couple are largely apolitical and other than Vincent being a former police officer who, on one occasion, is called a ‘Jaffa’ and Rosie’s instinctive changing of the maxim, “lay back and think of Ireland” to “lay back and think of Ulster”, no other unionist markers are apparent. As the couple attend dinner at Rosie’s parent’s house, her interaction with her father (Alun Armstrong) also strengthens the claim that her politics do not align with unionism. The conversation— about television coverage of Northern Ireland—also finds him expressing typical unionist concerns about their community’s representation in the media. Father: Rosie: Father: Rosie:

Aw TV. Sure you’ll only see republicans on TV. No one ever speaks to us. Who’s us? The people that built this country. Made it what it is. Aye and look at it. If you bought it in a shop you’d ask for your money back.

Rosie also demonstrates that she has little respect for the Orange Order in a scene where she is angered by Vincent declaring that he has plans to play golf. She argues that he doesn’t actually like the game and that it’s just an excuse for him to “dress up in silly clothes and go out with the boys”. She then adds, “You may as well join the Orange Order.” One sequence in particular sees the film conforming to patterns of representation significantly. When Rosie’s French pen pal from her youth decides to stay with them, his request that they attend a Céilí one evening results in the response, “It’s more of a Catholic thing, we’ve never been to one”. Like the following sequence, where the trio find themselves enjoying Irish traditional music in a bar surrounded by Celtic football tops, the film can be seen to conform to a tradition of representation that see uptight unionists transform as a result of what Hill describes as “an encounter with the conviviality of Catholic/nationalist culture” (Hill 2006: 217). This dynamic and the depiction of nationalists as being more jovial can be identified in earlier short films Henri (Shore, 1994) and Dance Lexie Dance (Loane, 1996), the television film Four Days in July (Leigh, 1984) and the feature film No Surrender (Smith, 1985). It would also be reinforced and become a dominant pattern of representation in future films.

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Divorcing Jack (1998) David Caffrey’s Divorcing Jack is a film written by Northern Irish writer Colin Bateman and adapted from his 1995 novel of the same name. Bateman has perhaps contributed more than anyone to the genre of ‘Troubles comedy’ given that he has written three other comedy films set in Northern Ireland and that comment on the Troubles or its legacy, Cycle of Violence (Herbert, 1998), Wild About Harry and The Journey (Hamm, 2016).1 Divorcing Jack was one of the first to benefit from the new funding environment and one of the most high profile. It was a BBC co-­ production in association with the London production company Scala. The film’s budget was around £3 million, making it one of the most expensive films to be made in Northern Ireland, and made up of funding from the BBC, a French company, Ima Films, and lottery funding, amounting to £800,000, from both the Arts Councils in Northern Ireland and England (Hill 2005: 228). Hill also explains that, unlike the politically conscious films of the 1980s, Divorcing Jack was “clearly conceived as a popular piece of genre filmmaking aimed squarely at the box-office” (Hill 2005: 227). The film itself is a satirical black comedy and the plot revolves around the Belfast reporter, Dan Starkey (David Thewlis)—a pessimist in seemingly a city of optimists—on the eve of Northern Ireland electing a new peace-promoting Prime Minister, Michael Brinn (Robert Lindsay). As the story develops, Starkey finds himself becoming increasingly entangled in a web of political intrigue and both republican and loyalist violence. As is the case with many of the 1990s films that have been analysed, unionism is again mostly represented in the form of crazed loyalist paramilitaries; on this occasion, the gang is led by “UVF Warlord” Billy McCoubrey (B.J. Hogg). However, there are subtle differences and signs of progression in the film’s depictions of the gang. Brian McIlroy praises Divorcing Jack in this regard for defying stereotypes. He argues: What is so refreshing about Caffrey’s film is a willingness to play with clichés in a tense political situation, and to play equally fast and loose with generic codes. To depict the Protestant gun-toting paramilitaries to the strains of the theme music of The Magnificent Seven is to reclaim some sanity and ironic distancing in a world that often has neither. (McIlroy 2001: 234) 1  In some territories, Cycle of Violence (1998) is titled either Crossmaheart or Dead Man’s Girl.

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An ironic distancing is also achieved by some of the mise-en-scène used; the gang leader, McCoubrey, continuing the Western theme, wears a classic cowboy shirt and hat in this sequence and at other times loyalist paramilitaries are seen with obscene, unrealistic, face tattoos. However, despite this playful approach to depicting paramilitaries—the IRA is treated almost as irreverently—many of the old traditions of representation can be seen to remain. For example, one of the face tattoos is the letters ‘FTP’ emboldened across a forehead; this is explained to an American journalist who accompanies Starkey at the time, Parker (Richard Gant), to mean ‘Fuck the Pope’. The depiction of the gang as being bigoted and sectarian is also reinforced by the fact that several of the gang resemble typical far-right groups as they sport skinheads and are attired in football tops (one is appropriately coloured orange) denim jackets and Dr. Martens boots. The incompetence of the gang is also displayed when they fail in their attempt to kill Starkey, prompting him to explain to Parker that one of the ways he knows the gang to be a “Protestant paramilitary” is due to the fact that they “fucked up”. Referencing the FTP tattoo, he also claims at this time that, in regard to them being incompetent, they are getting better because “usually they can’t spell FTP”. A comedian in a club (Colm Murphy) that both Starkey and the gang of loyalists attend performs another joke that’s in a similar vein: “What do you call a patient in a Belfast burns unit? A UVF explosives expert.” In seeking to present all paramilitaries as ultimately self-serving, Divorcing Jack presents McCoubrey in the same manner as Ginger is presented in Nothing Personal (O’Sullivan, 1995) and as being anything but loyal to their perceived cause. McCoubrey is ultimately found to work for the deceiving Brinn, an ex-IRA bomber, who pays McCoubrey to carry out acts of violence to ensure he is elected Prime Minister, ironically on a peace-promoting platform. In terms of other unionist representation, it is interesting that Starkey’s unionist political views—alluded to often in the novel—are significantly downplayed in the film. In Bateman’s original 1995 novel, Starkey describes himself as a “unionist with a sense of humour” and is described on one occasion as “an ultra-unionist”. The novel itself is also imbued by what Hill describes as a “sceptical unionist sensibility (albeit a wry, unorthodox kind)” (Hill 2005: 232). This is best exemplified when a Catholic priest who has received a heart transplant from an English Protestant becomes, according to the narrator, more “attuned to reconciliation” as a result. Despite Bateman describing the film as a “Unionist thriller”, both

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the references to Starkey being a unionist and the novel’s unionist sensibilities are almost entirely omitted in the film (McIlroy 2001: 234). Hill puts this omission down to being a “commercially sensible precaution” (Hill 2005: 232). However, if this does explain the approach taken, then it was a precaution that must have been necessary enough to take that producers did not mind problems being created for how Starkey’s character functions in the film. Hill goes on to explain: This is a problem of which the film’s co-producer, Robert Cooper, was aware. Reflecting on changes to the script, he argues that there was an absence of ‘moral purpose’ to Starkey’s actions and that it would be impossible to ‘like a character who doesn’t believe in anything’. His solution was to provide a new speech at the film’s end in which Starkey speaks up on behalf of the importance of ‘individuals’. However, this was not the ‘solution’ that Cooper appeared to believe. On the one hand, it has all the hallmarks of a tacked-on speech that lacks conviction in the face of what has preceded. (Ibid.)

Perhaps owing to the poor incorporation of this speech into the story, the film’s concluding coda is certainly where it is weakest and it is remarkable and telling that producers, in keeping with the ‘new man’ theme in films of the time, found this speech by Starkey preferable to him professing any form of unionism, even the moderate secular form of unionism identified in the novel. Strengthening the claim that unionist identifiers have been omitted from the film for commercial reasons, Starkey is found not to be the only character whose unionism is stripped from them in the film. A curt foul-­ mouthed female taxi-driver, played by Bronagh Gallagher in the film, features in both film and book. In the novel she is described as sporting a UVF tattoo on her arm and on one occasion pulls out in front of oncoming traffic shouting “Fenian Bastards”. Despite her depiction in the film being otherwise faithful to the novel, no such unionist signifiers are apparent.

The Most Fertile Man in Ireland (2000) The Most Fertile Man in Ireland, directed by Belfast-born director Dudi Appleton, is another comedy to benefit from the new environment in funding and the NI Film and Television Commission’s ability to receive

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and channel a larger amount of money. As well as being produced with funding from the commission, the film received further finance from the Irish Film Board in the South. Like Divorcing Jack, the film is clearly devised as a piece of genre filmmaking with box-office returns foremost in mind; this is an understanding supported by Edward Lawrenson’s claim that the film is best described as a “whimsical sex comedy” (Lawrenson 2003). However, for all its quirkiness, The Most Fertile Man in Ireland has a greater resemblance to traditional romantic comedy. Hill explains, “For the bringing of a romantic couple together despite the various obstacles and misunderstandings with which they are confronted is, of course, the central characteristic of romantic comedy” (Hill 2006: 218). The natural order in a ‘Troubles comedy’ is to therefore have the sectarian divide represent these obstacles and misunderstandings. As such, the romance in Appleton’s film is between the ‘Catholic’ protagonist Eamon (Kris Marshall) and a ‘Protestant’ love interest, Rosie (Kathy Kiera Clarke). The ‘Troubles Comedy’ was not the first occasion this theme was explored in an Irish setting as many examples of films exploring forbidden love at a time of conflict in Ireland have been produced. However, in such films this narrative device is principally used to overcome the ‘English-Irish divide’, specifically, British soldiers are typically seen to fall in love with Irish nationalist women. Examples of this can be identified in films like Ourselves Alone (Hurst, 1936), I See a Dark Stranger (Launder, 1946), Ryan’s Daughter (Lean, 1970) and A Quiet Day in Belfast (Bessada, 1974). Departing somewhat from this theme and reflecting the autonomy Northern Ireland was increasingly being afforded over depictions of the region, the ‘Trouble’s Comedy’ tended to focus on relations between Northern Irish communities. Hill again states that in doing so, comedies at this time “have also tended to dramatise ‘the Northern Ireland problem’ in terms of internal relations within the North rather than the external relations between Ireland and Britain” (Ibid.). In The Most Fertile Man in Ireland, Eamon and Rosie’s romance is complicated by the fact that Eamon is an in demand fertile male in a city (Belfast) currently lacking in such specimens. A satirical dimension is then given to this preposterous dilemma, given that with a referendum on a united Ireland likely in the future, Eamon’s fertility and the likelihood of him producing ‘Catholic’ offspring becomes a concern for loyalist paramilitary ‘Mad Dog’ Billy Wilson (James Nesbitt) given his desire to ensure his side wins the race to out-breed the other. As ridiculous as this sounds, it does have meaningful

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resonance in the real-life power struggle of Northern Ireland and indeed population fears such as this are commonly a part of ethno-national conflicts. Wilson is both a threatening loyalist gang leader and councilman in the film with the contradictory nature of him carrying out both roles glossed over. His nickname, ‘Mad Dog’, is perhaps a reference to the real-life notorious UDA leader Johnny Adair, with whom the nickname is shared. Although Adair never held any elected office, some other loyalist paramilitaries have; this means the brief and largely unnecessary inclusion of Wilson as also being a councilman can be considered a satirical commentary on the peculiar nature of Northern Irish politics. Other than the one occasion he is seen as a councilman and dressed in an ill-fitting suit, Wilson is generally dressed in denim, leather jackets and colourful, quasi-fashionable tank tops. This adheres to traditions of representation that have depicted loyalist fashion as bolder and more urban than their republican counterparts. Wilson’s dark hair, sideburns and gold chain are also perhaps influenced by the aesthetic of loyalist paramilitaries in previous films, namely Nothing Personal and Resurrection Man (Evans, 1998). As well as this, other influences from Resurrection Man can be identified; the homoeroticism displayed by Wilson’s camp sidekick, Georgie (Maclean Stewart), in the torture scene (itself a reference to the earlier films, albeit much more farcical) recalls the attraction Victor has to McLure and photos of “English boys in bed together”. Just as Victor’s gang was preoccupied with reputation, on several occasions, Wilson randomly forces people to read an old newspaper article back to him where he is called “feared and ruthless”. Each time the words are pronounced he can be seen to salivate with delight at the furthering of his formidable reputation and subsequently ignorant of how self-defeating this obsession may be for his personal and political objectives. The reason for him demanding people read it aloud may also be because he is unable to read although this isn’t made clear. Hill claims that the obsession with old newspaper articles may also show Wilson to be stuck in the past and “out of kilter with the new social and political realities” (Ibid.). Certainly, just as Wilson’s behaviour is self-defeating in regard to his romantic pursuit of Rosie, it can be read as a commentary on how ignorant unionism generally is to the political reality that finds the type of behaviour exhibited by Wilson self-defeating.

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Rosie offers a more favourable representation of unionism in the film; she is smarter and more educated than others, with a particular interest in the Boris Pasternak novel Dr. Zhivago and works in her uncle’s funeral home in a nationalist area where she has to fend off the incompetent Wilson’s advances. On one occasion Wilson tells her that he risked his life coming to a nationalist area to bring her flowers and affirms his bigotry by stating that a “good Protestant girl should be with Protestant people”. However, unlike Wilson, she is largely apolitical; the only time she is identified as unionist is when she asks Eamon to go the Eleventh Night bonfire with her, although she does stress the traditional nature of her attendance as her deceased father used to take her there all the time. Eamon is aghast at the prospect of attending the bonfire and exclaims: You mean the Protestant fires? You mean the fires celebrating how King Billy beat the Catholics in 1690? You mean the fires where Protestants get drunk and celebrate the Battle of the Boyne where they killed loads of Catholics … They’ll burn me alive.

When he reluctantly does attend later that night, he urgently tells Rosie, “Keep walking, if they see I’m a taig, they’ll string me up”. However, perhaps owing to the scene being seen through the lens of Rosie’s childhood memories, shot in warm golden hues, the bonfire and the surrounding area are transformed into a fantastical realm conducive to romance. Low hanging candles, string lights hanging in trees and burning embers caught in the breeze lead the way to the bonfire whilst, after a brief display of loyalist band music, the Irish folk singer Mary Black’s song, ‘Summer Sent You’, plays permeating the scene with conviviality. Hill identifies this type of presentation as a “sanitised view of the eleventh night […] designed to rescue loyalism from its association with the ‘abject’ as found in films such as Resurrection Man” (Hill 2006: 226). The positive portrayal of unionism represented by Rosie is somewhat undermined at this point as a question could be raised as to whether Rosie’s character would function in the same manner in the film if she were associated with a realistic and non-­ sanitised Eleventh Night celebration. The only occasion when a sense of hostility can be identified is when a man in a loyalist bandsman’s uniform and T-shirt with a Northern Ireland flag emblazoned on it approaches Eamon and drunkenly declares, “For God and Ulster”. He waits for Eamon to repeat the phrase back to him and therefore seemingly declare his unionism and alleviate any suspicion.

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Whether it is due to this sanitised example of loyalist tradition or the fact that he has spent an evening with the woman he desires, Eamon’s opinion of the loyalist bonfire tradition seems to quickly change. In reference to Eamon’s job working for a dating agency, Rosie tells him, “Look around you Mr. Dating Agency, do you not see people in love here?” He reluctantly agrees and his transformation can be seen to be complete the next day as he walks down the street happily mimicking the motion of a drummer in a loyalist band. However,  this moment of acceptance is quickly interrupted as he is grabbed off the street for interrogation by a gun-­ wielding Wilson. The bonfire sequence also fuses all manner of loyalist traditions, from Orange Order members in collarettes and bowler hats holding banners to bandsmen playing Lambeg drums, ignorant of the fact that, in reality, none of this attire is ever worn or instruments brought to an Eleventh Night bonfire. An effigy, jokingly claimed by Rosie to be a Catholic King called Eamon, also burns in the fire. It is not clear of whom this is an effigy but, in a further fusion of loyalist traditions, it’s likely to represent a traitor to Irish Protestantism during the Williamite War in Ireland called Robert Lundy, an effigy of whom is traditionally burned by the Apprentice Boys of Derry on the first Saturday in December. What is noticeably omitted from this romanticised presentation and more commonly associated with the real event are, amongst other things, the burning of effigies of Irish nationalist politicians and religious figures, Irish flags and emblems and election posters belonging to non-unionist political parties. Dióg O’Connell explains that the depiction of the bonfire is in contrast to the dominant media images circulating at the time such as that of the Drumcree standoff which highlighted the sectarian divide and is portrayed as “modern, celebratory and good humoured, satirical and fantastical, in post-Riverdance Ireland” (O’Connell 2010: 68). Furthermore, attiring the majority of those celebrating around the bonfire in either Orangeman garb or military-band style uniforms follows a pattern evident in other films in which unionists are militarised and therefore connected to Britain’s military involvement in Ireland. Therefore, despite this being perhaps the only positive portrayal of Orangeism to appear in cinema, rather than address the cinematic deficit that generally exists or ameliorate any damage done to the image of unionism by earlier films, the scene and its unrealistic depiction of the Eleventh Night further strengthens the claim that cinema has failed to deal with unionism in a credible way.

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Other examples of unionism in the film can be identified when, forced by Wilson to become a gigolo to ‘Protestant’ women as well as ‘Catholic’ women, Eamon encounters more ‘Protestants’. The film comments on the similarities between the two communities in the region by connecting the occasions Eamon visits the many different households through the use of montage. The fact that the houses are exactly the same but for the colour of décor and pictures on the wall is highlighted; in the homes of ‘Protestant’ women, photos of the Queen adorn the walls whereas Catholic women prefer the Pope. This is a theme identified elsewhere in the film, most notably when it is explained that, increasing the demand for Eamon’s services, neither the Protestant nor Catholic religions condone artificial insemination. On first impression, a key narrative thrust of the story— Wilson’s obsession with future demographic trends—continues the tradition of representation that understands the existence of Northern Ireland to be sectarian and colonial in nature. It also continues to depict unionism as insular and desperate to defend what territory or cultural currency it has. However, both the local Catholic priest and Eamon’s brother Raymond’s recreating of Wilson’s actions in an attempt to prevent Eamon from increasing the ‘Protestant’ population ultimately continues the pattern in the film of nationalists and unionists mirroring each other. In turn, both nationalist and unionist agitators are presented as equally incompetent and out of touch. However, in saying this, at the film’s conclusion, when Eamon decides to have a vasectomy, it is still tradition that can be seen to be dominant as it is ultimately Wilson’s sectarianism—not the Catholic priest or Raymond’s—that is visibly defeated. Perhaps intended as a manifestation of unionist anxiety about the future, a distraught Wilson watches Eamon get the procedure through a barricaded hospital door.

An Everlasting Piece (2001) An Everlasting Piece (Levinson, 2001) is a film directed by American director Barry Levinson and written by Belfast-born Barry McEvoy, who also stars as the film’s main protagonist, Colm. Owing to the film being produced by the major Hollywood studio, DreamWorks, the film had a budget of $9 million but quite sensationally, in an occurrence that somewhat prefigures Hollywood’s disinterest in films about the Troubles after 9/11, the film only recouped $75,000 at the US box office (Film Ireland 2001). Seemingly due to Colm’s IRA sympathies, along with depictions of young British Army recruits losing their hair due to the stress of serving in

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Northern Ireland, DreamWorks unceremoniously denied the film extensive distribution. Many believe this to be due to Steven Spielberg—who founded DreamWorks in 1994—personally deciding not to upset British officials in its Foreign Office (Mellor 2001). The fact that Spielberg received an honorary knighthood from the British state shortly after the film’s release gave further credence to such accusations. The film’s co-­ producer, Jerome O’Connor, filed an unsuccessful $10 million lawsuit in federal court in New York against DreamWorks claiming that the film was suppressed because of politics (Goldstein 2001). As a title card explains, the film is set in Belfast “sometime in the 1980s” and follows Colm, a ‘Catholic’, and George (Brian O’Byrne), a ‘Protestant’, as they become an odd couple of business partners after stumbling across a business opportunity. They discover that the region’s only wig seller, The Scalper (Billy Connolly), has been sectioned in a psychiatric ward and sensing the possibility of having a monopoly on the industry, decide to become door-to-door sellers of wigs (or to use the term that gives the film its name, hairpieces). Their relationship becomes frayed however when, in order to successfully traverse the politics of Northern Ireland during The Troubles, one must compromise on their principles. Levinson’s film can be seen to subscribe to many of the themes and motifs of the ‘Troubles Comedy’. It is optimistic about Northern Ireland’s future and treats the paramilitary figures in the film irreverently. The IRA are depicted as Kentucky Fried Chicken-loving incompetents whereas Mr Black (Des McAleer), a loyalist paramilitary who shot a ‘Catholic’, is presented as cheap and comically mistakes the word ‘hairpiece’ for ‘herpes’. However, as evidenced by the British Foreign Office’s seeming unhappiness, the film deviates significantly in many respects. Resembling the Reverend Ian Paisley in ideology and contempt for Catholics, the depiction of a bigoted Vicar who only orders a wig after reassurance that it wasn’t made from “dirty, mingy, smelly, Catholic hair” had the potential to open the film up for similar criticism as Resurrection Man. This scene could be understood as the film suggesting that the religion most unionists subscribe to is somehow implicated in the most sectarian actions carried out by unionists. The apolitical nature of protagonists in ‘Troubles Comedies’ at this time is also substituted in Levinson’s film for characters that are more stoically principled. George falls out with Colm and puts the business at risk when he begins to resent Colm for forcing them into protecting the IRA. Similarly, Colm explains to his girlfriend, Bronagh (Anna Friel), that

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there are two types of Catholics, “Those who support the ‘RA’ (IRA) and those who make excuses” before calling her a “Brit” for taking George’s side. Later, Colm agrees to sell wigs to the British Army only on the condition that they are charged double and that it is understood to be a gesture. George and Colm converse before the transaction and as they watch hundreds of young soldiers whose hair has fallen out due to the stress of serving in Northern Ireland congregate. George: Have you not got a problem with this? Selling wigs to the Brits? Colm: No. It’s a gesture. If you sold wigs to them, that would be wrong. If I say okay, it’s a gesture. You see, I can make a gesture because the only way to stop the cycle is if I—a Catholic—can forgive, not you a Protestant. George: Why not me, a Protestant? Colm: I’m having an epiphany. You can’t make the gesture. Only a Catholic can make the gesture. George: I can reciprocate. Colm: No. After, but not first. You can’t make the gesture. Only a Catholic can make the gesture. George: Why can only a Catholic make the gesture? Colm: Cause we’re in the right and you’re in the wrong. And therefore I am making the gesture. George: You’re in the right and we’re in the wrong? I think it’s a tad greyer than that... What if I said I was in the right and you were in the wrong? Colm: You’d be fucking wrong. George: Six hundred years here and we’re still in the wrong? Colm: Give or take a century, aye. George: I think I’m going to have to disagree with you there.

According to Hill, the decision Colm makes to sell to the British Army at the end of the film “evades the very obstacle to reconciliation that the film has shown the Protestant community to represent” (Hill 2006: 217). Colm being seen to concede on an issue similar to that which George remained obstinate ultimately depicts Colm, and perhaps therefore nationalism in general, as being more conducive to accommodation and reconciliation. The film’s nationalist sympathies are also much more discernible than in other ‘Troubles comedies’. This is apparent from the outset as an early establishing shot of Colm’s family home demonstrates the house’s proximity to a peace wall and therefore their ‘Protestant’ neighbours by the use of informal writing and arrows scribbled on the screen. A protective cage is visible at the back of the house and the scribbled writing and arrows claim it is to “protect against fire bombs” thrown from the ‘Protestant’ side.

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Another example of this bias is apparent in the sequence where Colm attends his new job, a barber in a mental hospital. The institution is presented here in a similar manner to how another institution, the prison, is presented in later films as a microcosm of Northern Irish society. The discrimination faced by nationalists at the time is demonstrated by the fact that it is claimed by Bronagh only five Catholics work there including her and Colm, despite the majority of the patients being Catholic. Indeed, this theme is reinforced when Colm is described as “the new Catholic” on the occasion he first meets his boss (George Shane), who proceeds to introduce Colm to the rest of the workforce. Ironically, it is found that all the workers are called Billy, a prominent unionist forename; Colm’s boss even jokes with him that due to his name being Billy King, people call him “King Billy”, before quickly adding, “No offence”. A further manifestation of the unionist hegemony nationalists endured at the time occurs when Colm and Bronagh go to the cinema. The playing of the British national anthem “God Save the Queen” after the credits— like the anthem being played on television in Maeve (Murphy and Davies, 1981) and Cal (O’Connor, 1984)—can be understood to reflect the systemic nature of the discrimination faced by nationalists at the time. The inevitable playing of it also prompts Colm and Bronagh’s early exit only for them to be accosted by menacing thugs at the exit who appear to have anticipated nationalists making a break for it. After threateningly telling Colm to “face the music, Paddy”, he and Bronagh reluctantly turn around and look as the anthem is accompanied by a waving Union flag superimposed over a picture of the Queen on the big screen. Hill claims that the optimism in the film about Northern Ireland’s future by its “reimagining of community” extends only so far due to ‘Protestants’ still remaining largely othered (Hill 2006: 217). Perhaps the best example of this othering of ‘Protestants’ and therefore unionists is apparent when analysing the most favourable representative of unionism in the film, George. Although George is on screen almost as much as Colm and their desires and fates are intertwined, George is not a protagonist in the same sense as Colm. The film fixates on the nationalist community, specifically the home lives of both Colm and Bronagh’s families. George’s family and friends are never depicted and as such he is presented as something of a loner, reliant on Colm’s family for socialising and community. This is another example of a film conforming to patterns of representation in which a solemn unionist transforms as a result of exposure to the conviviality of nationalist culture. However, this is somewhat offset by

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the subverting of another unionist stereotype—that unionists don’t engage in the arts in the same way as nationalists—as George is depicted as a novice poet who, towards the end of the film, reads poetry to a receptive audience at Belfast’s Queen’s University.

Conclusion The emergence of the ‘Troubles comedy’ in the period after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement marks a real change in representations of Northern Ireland. Naturally, a shift can also be identified in portrayals of unionists. Gone with the seriousness of previous depictions of unionists are allusions to collusion with security services and instances of extreme paramilitary savagery. Perhaps partly owing to films being less politically conscious than earlier films an ironic distancing is introduced to depictions instead. Both republican and loyalist politics are also understood as being of the past and not compatible with the ‘new man’ celebrated in such films. The one exception to this being An Everlasting Piece which—seemingly much to the production’s detriment—maintains the politically minded protagonists of the past. The most obvious sign that representations have evolved somewhat is evidenced by the unrealistic and sanitised depiction of the Eleventh Night celebration in The Most Fertile Man in Ireland. The scene demonstrates an acknowledgement of unionism’s abject reputation and a willingness to attempt to rectify. It also succeeds somewhat in ameliorating the bias apparent in films about the Northern Ireland conflict. However, at least in the eyes of an initiated audience, an ironic distancing can still be seen to be at play and the overly sanitised, inauthentic depiction ultimately proves to be insufficient at addressing cinema’s failure to properly depict unionists and unionist identities. Unionists being bigoted, incompetent, insular, obsessed with maintaining a ruthless reputation, bearers of more than enough privileges and anything but loyal to their perceived cause also generally remains. The othering and omission of unionists are also still very much apparent. Although the omission of Starkey’s political leanings in Divorcing Jack may be owing to this celebration of the ‘new man’ in such films, the film’s purposeful exclusion of any mention of him being a unionist can still be seen to exemplify the cinematic deficit. DreamWorks and Steven Spielberg’s failure to properly distribute An Everlasting Piece, for whatever reason, would be a sign of things to come

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concerning Hollywood’s loss of interest in the Troubles after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the new relationship the United States was forming with Britain in the run-up to the Iraq War. However, interestingly the cinematic deficit concerning unionism being depicted less favourably and frequently than nationalism, as well as many traditions of representation, can be seen to continue in the films that follow.

References Baker, Stephen. 2016. ‘Victory Doesn’t Always Look the Way Other People Imagine It’ Post-conflict cinema in Northern Ireland. In The Routledge Companion to Cinema and Politics. London: Routledge. Film Ireland. 2001. Piecemeal Release. Film Ireland 19 (6). Ging, Debbie. 2013. Men and Masculinities in Irish Cinema. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Goldstein, Patrick. 2001. Producer Sues Dreamworks, Saying It ‘Suppressed’ Film. Los Angeles Times. Accessed 5 October 2022. https://www.latimes.com/ archives/la-­xpm-­2001-­feb-­13-­ca-­24622-­story.html. Hill, John. 2005. Divorcing Jack. In The Cinema of Britain and Ireland. London: Wallflower Press. ———. 2006. Cinema and Northern Ireland. London: British Film Institute. Lawrenson, Edward. 2003. The Most Fertile Man in Ireland. Sight and Sound 13 (10): 56. McIlroy, Brian. 2001. Shooting to Kill: Filmmaking and the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. 2nd ed. Richmond, BC: Steveston Press. Mellor, Rupert. 2001. I Really Shouldn’t Talk about This… The Guardian. Accessed 5 October 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2001/ mar/23/culture.features. O’Connell, Dióg. 2010. New Irish Storytellers: Narrative Strategies in Film. Bristol: Intellect. Pettitt, Lance. 2000. Screening Ireland: Film and Television Representation. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

CHAPTER 6

Unionist Screws: Prison Officers in H3 (2001), Silent Grace (2004) and Hunger (2008)

One of Brian McIlroy’s earlier findings is of particular interest when looking at more recent films. In 1988, he finds one impediment to a fuller understanding of Northern Irish unionism in cinema to be the way unionists are presented as having a transitory military identity that ties them to the worst acts of violence committed by the British in Ireland and therefore somewhat stripping them of their civilian status and their Irishness. He notes: To dress Protestants mainly in the uniforms of the RUC and the UDR is to strip them of their Irishness, to give them a transitory military identity that ties them to the Black and Tans. After all, it is easier to categorize a person in uniform, whether with an Orangeman’s bowler hat, white gloves and sash, or with the dark attire and grey armoured car of the RUC, bristling with machine guns, than to confront the Protestant civilian ideology. (McIlroy 1988: x)

In films of that era, unionists were regularly depicted as members of either the security services or the Orange Order (which often makes use of military-like regalia as well). In the first decade of the new century this pattern can be seen to continue, although it manifests somewhat differently, in three films made within a decade of each other: Les Blair’s H3 (Blair, 2001), Maeve Murphy’s Silent Grace (Murphy, 2004) and Steve McQueen’s Hunger (McQueen, 2008). Filmmakers’ exploration of the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Gallagher, Screening Ulster, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23436-1_6

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republican hunger strikes causes unionist characters to be presented primarily as prison officers, another uniformed arm of the state. An interest in the hunger strikes at this time is rather inexplicable although Jennie Carlsten locates the films within the trend of Irish cinema’s preoccupation with themes of loss and grieving and specifically stories of individual mourning set within the context of wider national traumas. She claims, “Dealing with such cataclysms as the Irish Civil War, institutional abuse, mass emigration, the Northern Irish Troubles and the societal ruptures of the Celtic Tiger (the economy of the Irish Republic), these films provide a site for confronting and negotiating the troubled past” (Carlsten 2015a: 151). The films can be located within the trend of ‘commemorative’ filmmaking apparent at this time that saw many depictions of Irish nationalists as can also be identified in films such as Paul Greengrass’ Bloody Sunday (Greengrass, 2002) and Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Loach, 2006). Despite a knowing audience understanding that, in reality, almost all prison officers were unionist or from a Protestant background, of the films that depict prison officers, only H3, Silent Grace, and Hunger clearly identify prison officers as being unionist. Previous films to depict the hunger strikes, such as Terry George’s 1996 film Some Mother’s Son (George, 1996), although presenting prison officers as being very unsympathetic to republican prisoners, stopped short of clearly identifying them as unionist. The humanising of a prison officer in a later 2017 film, Maze (Burke, 2017), also noticeably comes without any clear signifier that he is unionist, although some other minor prison officer characters are heard directing the insult “Fenian scum” to republican prisoners. In fact, Gordon (Barry Ward), the prison officer the audience is invited to sympathise with even gets into a fight with a more extreme colleague partly due to his perceived liberal approach to dealing with the republican prisoners. A similar dynamic also exists in the earlier film, H3, as an empathetic prison officer who again lacks any unionist signifiers is called a “Provie lover” by an identifiably unionist colleague. The choice to clearly depict prison officers as unionist in the three films analysed in this chapter follows traditions of representation that sees unionists as pro-state whilst the authoritative prison officer uniform resembles typical historic representations. A further pattern of representation can be identified as unionists are depicted as merely an adjunct to narratives about nationalists. This is of course owing to the fact that they revolve around the 1980 and 1981 republican hunger strikes, a period

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that has already proven to have influenced depictions of Ireland greatly; H3 and Hunger focus on the males on strike at the Maze prison in 1981 whilst Silent Grace is the only fiction film about the much less publicised, female hunger strike in Armagh prison in 1980. Debbie Ging acknowledges this fact when she states, “With the exception of Silent Grace, there has been no cinematic recognition of the female hunger strikers and prisoners” (Ging 2013: 152).

A New World? The peace accord, the Good Friday Agreement, may have been signed in 1998 but violence, predominantly carried out by republican and loyalist paramilitary splinter groups unhappy with the direction of the peace process, continued to engulf Northern Ireland in the years that followed. The Omagh Bomb, carried out in August 1998 by dissident republicans opposed to the peace process, killed 29 people and was the deadliest single event of the Troubles. A feud within loyalist paramilitarism, between the UDA and UVF, also led to years of killings and hostility from within the unionist community. The more hard-line parties regarding constitutional matters, the DUP on the unionist side and Sinn Féin on the nationalist side, made significant gains politically and their rise as a political force would continue unabated in the years after the signing. Politics in the region was also stifled during this time by years of disagreement over the failure to properly enact the principles of the agreement; the main issue pertained to the decommissioning of weapons and policing reform. In television at this time, the BBC produced one of the most authentic depictions of unionism with the Harry Bradbeer-directed television film, As the Beast Sleeps (Bradbeer, 2001). The detailed and realistic nature of the depiction of a UDA gang struggling to adapt after the paramilitary ceasefires is perhaps not a surprise given that the screenplay was written by a self-proclaimed loyalist, Gary Mitchell, and based on his play of the same name.1 Like December Bride—although As the Beast Sleeps is a television film—Bradbeer’s film, given Mitchell’s background and politics, can boast 1  Quoted in the Guardian in 2000, Mitchell describes himself as growing up “completely loyalist, completely Unionist, completely Protestant” and explains, “I tried to involve myself in the UDA and find out where the UVF was. I tried to play my part. I wanted to bring the war to them. I did some bad stuff to some people to prove myself but I was racked with guilt” (Gibbons 2000).

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to be another occasion where film has come closest to producing an indigenous Northern Irish unionist film. Despite this, Mitchell and his family would need to go into hiding after the film was released due to a November 2005 attack on their Rathcoole home by a loyalist gang incensed at Mitchell’s portrayal of loyalist paramilitaries. In fact, police estimate that 32 people took part in three coordinated attacks on the wider Mitchell family (McDonald 2006). It was an attack that was not totally surprising to Mitchell who had previously bemoaned, “Protestants don’t write plays, you see. You must be a Catholic or a Catholic sympathiser, or a homosexual to do that. No one in our community does that because playwriting is a silly pretend thing” (Gibbons 2000). Despite a profusion of playwrights and filmmakers coming from within the republican community— many of whose work has already been examined within this research—it is perhaps a testament to Mitchell’s statement that a similar occurrence has never happened to republican writers. As with the other periods looked at in this project, Irish nationalism continued to dominate cinema about the Troubles. However, it is not just the existence of nationalist characters that suggests this but also the type of films made as films of this period conform to a general pattern of ‘commemorative’ filmmaking. As well as the three films about the 1981 republican hunger strike examined in this chapter, this can be observed in the production of films such as Bloody Sunday and The Wind That Shakes the Barley. In fact, in the same year as Paul Greengrass’ Bloody Sunday was released in cinemas, a television film, Sunday (McDougall, 2002), was released about the same event, an incident where the British Army killed civil rights protesters in January 1972 in the predominantly nationalist city of Derry. Making ‘commemorative’ films such as these can be seen to specifically aid the republican movement which—according to Marianne Elliott—has historically depended on a shared culture of grievance and victimhood to unite nationalists (Elliott 2000: 441). Hill explains, “[T]he most powerful cinematic images of northern nationalism have tended to downplay the history of paramilitary action (and, indeed, political ideas) in favour of the sacrificial event—wrongful imprisonment, Bloody Sunday, the hunger-strike” (Hill 2006: 241). Later in the decade, The Mighty Celt (Elliott, 2005) Breakfast on Pluto (Jordan, 2005) and Fifty Dead Men Walking (Skogland, 2008) would all include Irish nationalist characters prominently and portray either the Troubles or its legacy. It is worth noting that Fifty Dead Men Walking departs from tradition significantly as it is vociferously anti-IRA

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(however, unionist characters are omitted entirely). Although not about the Troubles, the winning of the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006 by Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Loach, 2006) would reignite the debate in the press surrounding cinematic depictions of conflict in Ireland. The film’s narrative is about Ireland’s struggle for independence from Britain in the 1920s and particular offence was taken in the British media—again not due to any cinematic deficit concerning depictions of unionists—but to Loach’s favourable depiction of the IRA and unfavourable depiction of the notoriously brutal British Black and Tans.2 Interestingly, none of the films made after 2001 have been produced or funded by the United States. It seems Hollywood’s interest in the IRA quickly evaporated with the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the new relationship the United States was forming with Britain in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Mark Connelly explains, “Stunned by the carnage and the images of Arabs dancing in the streets, Irish Americans lost any ability to rationalize or minimize terrorism. The romance of the gunman—or especially the bomber—evaporated” (Connelly 2012: 168). Instead, after 9/11 funding for films about the Troubles generally came from either within Ireland, Britain or elsewhere in Europe. Hollywood noticeably changed tact with funding for films about Ireland generally only going to those focused on the Irish immigrant experience, the most notable example of this at the time being Jim Sheridan’s In America (Sheridan, 2002). This fact presents a challenge to claims made previously that such a deficit is a result of Hollywood’s anti-imperialist view of Northern Ireland’s existence or Hollywood being influenced by or appealing to an Irish America with republican sympathies. This is an understanding which is largely the result of the important role Irish America played in the funding and supporting of Irish republicanism over the years, an actuality explored in many films about conflict in Ireland. Whilst acknowledging the significant role that Hollywood has played both in shaping the IRA’s representation on screen and in the omission of unionists, the fact that the cinematic deficit and what has been described as the anti-imperialist view of Northern Ireland’s existence can be seen to continue in films after 9/11 suggest other explanations for the deficit may be more valid.

2  The headline to one incensed article in the London-based Daily Mail read: “Why does Ken Loach loathe his country so much?” (Dudley Edwards 2006).

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H3 (2001) and Silent Grace (2004) Both H3 and Silent Grace are very similar in their depiction of prison officers and in the way they identify them as unionist; both also received funding from the Irish Film Board. Receiving additional funding from both the NI Film and Television Commission and RTÉ, H3 was released in Irish cinemas in 2001 and was directed by English director Les Blair and written by Brian Campbell and Laurence McKeown. Both the film’s writers are former Provisional IRA members and prisoners with McKeown actually participating in the 1981 republican hunger strike, the event the film is based on. The film also recounts the incidents leading up to, and subsequent developments in, the male republican’s struggle for prisoner of war status in the Maze prison. Silent Grace is a film written and directed by Belfast-born filmmaker, Maeve Murphy. Although first shown at film festivals in 2001 as well, Silent Grace didn’t receive a cinematic release until 2004. The film is influenced by Nell McCafferty’s 1981 book about the hunger strike in the Armagh Women’s Prison, The Armagh Women, and is adapted from the play “Now and At the Hour of Our Death” which Murphy also co-wrote. The film depicts the women involved in the first republican dirty protest and hunger strike in December 1980 that was ultimately unsuccessful concerning prisoner demands being met. Unlike the second and more publicised republican hunger strike a year later, there were no deaths as the British state temporarily appeased republican leadership before any prisoners passed away. Due to the nature of the first strike, which was not as carefully coordinated as the second, three female prisoners in Armagh Women’s Prison joined the males in the strike: Mairéad Nugent, Mary Doyle and Mairéad Farrell. However, the characters’ names are changed in the film’s fictionalised account of events. Prison officers in both films are generally depicted as typically oppressive and uncaring. Reflecting how prisons are often used in films about the Troubles as a microcosm of Northern Irish society, prison officers are also used to embody the unyielding unionist state which has ostensibly moulded the republican characters. They are identified as unionists in both films by expressions of cultural identity, specifically engagement with Orange traditions, which they use to antagonise republican prisoners. However, owing to the tumult in the prison at the time, their resorting to such expressions of cultural identity can also be identified as a type of defence mechanism. This is particularly noticeable in H3 as the prison

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officer’s actions in this regard can be seen as a desperate attempt to regain the upper hand due to it coinciding with Bobby Sands being elected to the British parliament, a moment in history that can certainly be understood as a time when unionism was particularly vulnerable. In the scene, a republican prisoner, Declan (Aidan Campbell), shouts through his prison window at the prison officers in the yard outside. Declan: Prison Officer: Declan: Prison Officer:

You won’t be able to say we aren’t political prisoners when Bobby gets elected MP. He’ll never get elected. Aye, you’re terrified in case he does. Do we look terrified?

In a desperate attempt to prove his assertion, the prison officer then marches towards his amused colleagues singing the loyalist song, “The Sash My Father Wore” and mimicking the playing of a flute. This act was also foreshadowed in an earlier scene where the prison officer randomly whistles the song. All the other prison officers in the yard then join in with this informal expression of unionist culture. Later, after the prison is made aware of Sands’ election victory via the prisoners’ smuggled radio, the prison officers are again watched by the prisoners in their cells as they walk through the yard to the other side. This time, they are visibly dejected and in a much more sombre mood. Rather than put on a spectacle for the prisoners as before, they now hurry to get through the yard to the other side with one even chastising a colleague for not opening the gate quickly enough. In this way, the film discredits the prison officer’s earlier claim that they are not terrified of Sands’ victory. This is perhaps also a commentary on the monumental nature of the election result. Aware of such significance, the prisoners jeer them as Declan shouts: You’re very fucking quiet now. He’s an MP. Did you hear that? An MP. Is that political enough for you? Do criminals get 30,000 votes? Do they? Maggie Thatcher didn’t even get 30,000. He’s a political prisoner. We are all political prisoners.

Similarly, in Murphy’s Silent Grace, prison officers out in the yard— watched by the prisoners through their cell windows—goad the prisoners with expressions of cultural identity. This time, the prison officers’ actions

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are motivated by the IRA’s killing of one of their colleagues. The occasion also falls on the 11th of July, resulting in a male and female prison officer weaponising the annual Eleventh Night celebration to cause maximum offence and intimidation. This is achieved with the creation of a bonfire out of mattresses that the prisoners have requested in the yard in full view of the prisoners. A medium shot shows the female prison officer throwing a mattress on the fire as she shouts upwards at them, “There’s your mattresses, you dirty Fenian bitches”. The same static shot also shows the Irish state flag being set alight and waved triumphantly in the prisoners’ direction as their reaction is registered in a cutaway. The prisoners being referred to as “dirty” is a theme also identifiable in H3 as the unionist prison officer is heard referring to the prisoners as “Dirty smelly Fenians”. On another occasion out in the yard in full view of the prisoners he loudly discusses with his colleagues Bobby Sands’ chances of getting elected. He exclaims, “Tell us how Bobby is going to do. Sure who would vote for that smelly Fenian fucker? The most he is going to win is slimmer of the year.” As in H3, the two police officers also sing the loyalist song “The Sash My Father Wore” as well as another “We are the Billy Boys” which, depending on the rendition, is known to include the sectarian line, “up to our knees in Fenian blood”. The male prison officer also twirls his truncheon mimicking the lead baton twirler in a loyalist band procession. In what may be a casting decision made with the linking of the prison officers to the worst excesses of unionism in mind, the male prison officer is played by Michael Liebmann who also played a member of the brutal loyalist gang, the Shankill Butchers, in Marc Evans’ Resurrection Man (Evans, 1998) a few years earlier. This depiction of the Eleventh Night bonfire, albeit a seemingly impromptu one, as being sectarian, triumphalist and evocative differs significantly to the type of representation seen previously in Appleton’s The Most Fertile Man in Ireland (Appleton, 2000) and can be understood as a much more unsanitised portrayal. The fire’s flames are foregrounded in the static shot used and therefore presented as a typically destructive fire rather than a celebratory bonfire; an uninformed audience may even be blind to any cultural significance. This particular portrayal can also be seen to link the actions of the prison officers with destruction carried out by unionists historically as the fire triggers a memory from one of the prisoners of her family being burnt out of their home. This is visibly presented as the slow-motion burning of the Irish flag is intercut with a close-up of the prisoner as the fire’s distant flare furnishes her face with light. The female prisoner recounts the story about

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ostensible unionists burning her and her family out of their home in what is perhaps a reference to the real-life burning of nationalist streets by unionists at the beginning of the Troubles. She recalls: I remember when they came and burned us out. I remember me, my Mammy and Róisín running up the street. Róisín was wearing a yellow nighty. I remember my Mammy saying not to look back. I did but … and the whole house was in flames.

In this way, the idea that the prison officers embody the oppression felt by nationalists and which has moulded them is also reinforced. Moments later, a further linking of unionism with violence can be identified as the male prison officer makes his way up to one of the female prisoner’s cells and violently attacks her, referring to  his colleague who was killed, he shouts, “That’s for Anne Bates, you fucking bitch.” Aware of what is happening, the female prison officer remains by the fire listening; she also drinks from a can of beer continuing a pattern of representation, identifiable in many of the films analysed, that sees unionists associated with alcohol. Hunger (2008) Hunger received the majority of its funding from Film Four, with Northern Ireland Screen (previously known as the Northern Ireland Film and Television Commission) also investing money into the film’s production. Directed by the English Turner Prize-winning video artist and (later) Academy award-winning film director, Steve McQueen, it is one of the most critically acclaimed films to be made about the Troubles, winning the Caméra D’Or award for first-time directors at the Cannes film festival in 2008.3 Martin McLoone claims this critical acclaim is largely the result of the film being made a significant amount of time after the Troubles and during a period when international attention had long since shifted to political problems elsewhere in the world. He states:

3  Not all reviews were positive. The Irish Times columnist, Fintan O’Toole, took particular issue with the film for failing to wrest the narrative from the hunger strikers and for overlooking the fact that more prison wardens were killed by the IRA during the strike than prisoners died on hunger strike (O’Toole 2008).

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Perhaps Hunger is testament to the old adage that artistic creation is difficult in the eye of the storm itself and benefits from a period of relative distance from the events depicted. When assessing the film and television drama of the past, it is well to remember that artistic creation then had to contend with an almost daily catalogue of violence, political instability and a climate of censorship and control that severely challenged artistic expression. (McLoone 2011: 4)

McLoone also claims that McQueen’s notoriety as an acclaimed video artist also caused the film to be viewed in a different light and “appraised in a different cultural context than most other films about Northern Ireland” (Ibid.). The film being received differently may also be due to the film being noticeably less political. Ging explains, “Hunger departs from the narrative and sociological preoccupations of previous films about the Troubles and, more specifically about the hunger strikes, such as Some Mother’s Son and H3” (Ging 2013: 149). Instead, the film is focused on the emotional and the personal, specifically, as is the case with the film’s final immersion into the plight of Bobby Sands, the emotion involved in starving one’s self to death for political reasons. In doing so, the film generally foregoes discourse in favour of using filmic cues to express emotion. Interestingly for this project, a significant amount of attention is also paid to the emotion experienced by a unionist prison officer called Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham) although predictably less screen time is reserved for such. This can be seen as one example of how—despite the different cultural context that Hunger is viewed through—it still ascribes to many of the patterns of representation that went before concerning unionist representation, depictions of prison officers as well as portrayals of Ireland more widely. Another example of this being that despite the less overtly political approach adopted by McQueen, Raymond is still identified early on in the film as being a unionist through a purposeful close-up of a key ring with a Union flag on it, seen when he opens his locker to change into his uniform for work. Although a more subtle use of exposition in comparison, like the celebration of loyalist culture expressed by prison officers in H3 and Silent Grace, this can be seen to immediately reinforce that Lohan is not just a working stiff doing a job to feed his family but that he subscribes to a political belief that has contributed to the creation of the current situation faced by the film’s characters. For an uninformed audience, this understanding can still be understood owing to contextual information being provided in the form of title cards at the

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beginning of the film and the use of radio reportage and several of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s speeches used over long lingering shots of life in the prison. The trauma experienced by Sands, played by Michael Fassbender, as he decides to organise the hunger strike and eventually starve himself to death is ultimately the film’s primary concern. However, initially, the viewer is aligned with Lohan, his experiences and emotions, before the film encourages a shift in allegiances and, at the midway point, republicans eventually kill him. In fact, Lohan’s actions take up the entirety of the screen time for the film’s first ten minutes, during which the audience’s allegiance can be understood to be with the prison officer. The camera lingers on his wounded hands and his wincing face as he dips his hands into water in the sink. The film also studiously depicts his and his wife’s morning routine of checking both the surrounding area for gunmen and under their car for a bomb. Through a window, his wife is shown watching him as he starts the car and leaves in a brief but emphatic cue to her fears about losing him. This is also a brief occasion in the film that serves to express the anxieties faced by the family of prison officers, and perhaps unionists in general, during this time. The course of events depicted in the film is not chronological as evidenced by the film subtly circling back in time. Lohan’s actions in the opening sequence are found to follow a portion of the film focused on a republican prisoner entering the prison for the first time and Sands’ forceful haircutting, during which we discover that the wound to Lohan’s hand has come about due to him using excessive force. It is at this point that Lohan is no longer simply a victim of the terror visibly inflicted upon him and his family, but an aggressor. Carlsten explains: The film has circled back in time; first the viewer is aligned with the prison guard Lohan and his experience, then time is rewound, and events unfold for the prisoner. This encourages a shift in allegiances, as well as an emotional shift. Lohan is no longer the focalizer for the audience, but the antagonist. His injuries now convey a moral ambiguity. After encouraging the viewer to feel concern for Lohan—showing his humanity through the most mundane and minute details, down to the crumbs falling from his toast— the narrative has shifted and now encourages the viewer to feel concern, even empathy, for Lohan’s victim. (Carlsten 2015b: 57)

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Cinematic cues also trigger this allegiance shift. The sequence involves Sands being dragged from his cell, punched by Lohan and his head forced down aggressively onto a stool for Lohan to cut his hair and beard. Bloodied from Lohan punching him in the face, Sands is then dragged into a bath and his head forced under the water as the prison officer scrubs him with a yard brush. Visibly exhausted by the ordeal, Sands’ lifeless and naked body is then removed and returned to his cell. Carlsten explains that the use of unconventional camera angles, jump cuts and compressed time accompanies the continuing brutality and pandemonium within the prison and as a direct effect increases sympathy for Sands and aligns the audience’s allegiance with him. Carlsten states: As Lohan continues to cut, the brutality of the act is communicated through a series of jump cuts, each shot a grotesque close-up, each capturing a different view, and each separated by a small ellipsis of time. The soundtrack captures Sands’ animalistic groans. (Carlsten 2015b: 55)

Lohan’s brutal killing, shot in the back of the head by a republican gunman in a residential home as he visits his senile mother whose lap his dead body falls onto, is a return to a type of portrayal which can be understood to elicit sympathy. However, by this stage, the audience’s allegiance has thoroughly been moved elsewhere. The sequence is also somewhat overshadowed by the scene that follows where Sands expresses to a Catholic priest (Liam Cunningham) his desire to make the ultimate sacrifice and, in doing so, also offers one of the clearest articulations of the Irish republican cause committed to screen. Other than Lohan’s actions, news reports and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s speech heard over the radio, the outside world is not depicted in the film. However, later in the film, when Sands is frail and close to death, in an attempt to offer insight into how the outside world was reacting to the hunger strike, McQueen’s film offers another depiction of unionism. The polarised nature of Northern Irish society is reflected in the different way Sands is treated by two hospital orderlies. One, played by Lalor Roddy, is kind and considerate. As Sands’ sores on his body are visibly distressing him when he lies in bed, the benevolent orderly can be seen treating the sores with cream and putting a rug under Sands before lying him down in bed to make him more comfortable. Later, he prevents a weakened Sands from falling from the toilet to the floor and constructs a makeshift cage to put around his body so that the bedcovers do not

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make contact with his sores. Like prison officers, prison orderlies were mostly from a unionist background, however, there are no markers for the orderly’s background identifiable in the film and therefore an opportunity to break with convention is missed in the sequences involving the character. Perhaps suspicious of this compassionate behaviour, the orderly is seen being thoroughly searched by prison officers when he leaves the prison. On one occasion, another orderly, played by B.J. Hogg and credited as a “loyalist orderly”, replaces him. This character is first seen as he enters the bathroom where Sands bathes with the orderly played by Roddy in close attendance and sat on a chair. His arrival is presented as being imposing and is perhaps again reflective of the increasing polarisation in the outside world as he replaces his colleague without any pleasantry being exchanged. He then swings the chair around menacingly and sits on it back to front next to Sands, his hand resting on the top of the chair purposefully revealing the letters UDA tattooed on his knuckles. This is a marker for his background absence from the depiction of the previous orderly. As well as the tattoo identifying him as unionist, the casting here could also be understood as being something of an indicator given Hogg’s notoriety for playing unionist characters in such films as Four Days in July (Leigh, 1985), Dance Lexie Dance (Loane, 1996), Nothing Personal (O’Sullivan, 1995), Resurrection Man (Evans, 1998), Divorcing Jack (Caffrey, 1998) and as loyalist Uncle Merv in the long-running BBC television show Give My Head Peace (BBC, 1998–present). His presence is also depicted as being formidable and in stark contrast to the sickly Sands as his face and later knuckles are presented in close-up and in a traditional low-angle shot often used to convey power that could also be considered Sands’ point of view given his position in the bath. Upon noticing that both the previous orderly has been replaced and the telling tattoo, Sands exchanges a knowing stare before closing his eyes and laying his head back in the bath, visibly dejected. The orderly’s predictably malevolent intentions are then manifested in his refusal to aid Sands as he exits the bath. Knowing that he is not to expect help, a determined Sands gets out of the bath by himself. However, the exertion proves too much for his weak body and he collapses onto the hard-tiled floor as the orderly watches on having ostensibly refused to prevent his fall unlike his colleague who had grabbed Sands when he had earlier fallen off the toilet. The orderly’s cruelty is realised fully as a result of Fassbender’s extreme weight loss for the role which allows for a comprehensive

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depiction of his character’s vulnerability as he lies naked on the floor before the orderly. The following scene shows an unconscious Sands completely at the mercy of the large man as he is carried back to his bed, leaving the audience only to imagine what further harm he may come to surrounded by such hostile individuals. Although the intention here could be understood as the film attempting to mirror the polarising nature of how Sands’ actions were being received outside the prison, this is yet another example of how the audience are aligned with Sands and the other republican prisoners at the expense of characters who are clearly identified as being unionist, one through a close-up of his key ring and the other through a close-up of his tattoo. Along with the depiction of Lohan as ultimately an aggressor, this demonstrates that although McQueen’s Hunger was received as a very different sort of ‘Troubles film’, traditions of representation can still be clearly identified.

Conclusion The three films examined in this chapter provide perhaps the clearest example of a cinematic deficit in films about the Troubles regarding unionists being depicted less favourably than nationalists. Reflecting the Irish political landscape, the films also demonstrate the lasting influence the republican hunger strikes has had on screen depictions of Ireland, a phenomenon discussed previously when offering a rationale for British cinema’s sudden interest in the Troubles in the 1980s. The prison officers depicted in H3, Silent Grace and Hunger are clearly identified as being unionist. The fact that the vast majority of prison officers and indeed security service personnel working in Northern Ireland were Protestant and unionist gives the films license to depict prison officers in such a manner. As a result, although it is unlikely to be the filmmakers’ intention, the films do not offer anything in the way of rectifying the poor understanding of unionism and unionist identities in cinema. Rather, it is a type of representation that can generally be seen to reinforce traditions of representation. Strengthening McIlroy’s claim, that filmmakers prefer not to contend with the Protestant civilian ideology, identifiable unionists, owing to their occupation as prison officers and orderlies, are again uniformed, possess a transitory military identity and are linked to

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the state. Furthermore, although prison officers and orderlies who are not clearly identified as unionist are often presented favourably, those who are identified as unionist are accompanied with traits and actions that present them as either bigoted, uncaring or the aggressor in situations of conflict. This approach is further problematic given that the prisons—to varying degrees in the films—operate as a microcosm of Northern Irish society. Prison officers and orderlies act as the manifestation of the oppression faced by nationalists; by also identifying those with a predilection for violence and oppressive behaviour as being unionist, and having typical unionist perspectives of the conflict, a further dimension is added. This is because rather than it just being the state that is implicated in the subjugation of nationalists and the creation of the environment that has led to the tragic events that occur, unionism is also implicated. Given that the films examined within this chapter are about events significant to Irish nationalism, like many of the previous films discussed in this research, unionist characters are also presented typically as merely an adjunct to narratives about Irish nationalism. However, this would be a phenomenon that would somewhat change as evidenced in the depiction of unionist characters in the films examined in the next chapter.

References Carlsten, Jennie. 2015a. Black Holes and White Spaces: Ellipsis and Pause in Steve McQueen’s Hunger. Projections 9: 43–65. ———. 2015b. Not Thinking Clearly: History and Emotion in the Recent Irish Cinema. In Film, History and Memory. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Dudley Edwards, Ruth. 2006. Why Does Ken Loach Loathe His Country So Much? Daily Mail. Accessed 5 October 2022. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ news/article-­388256/Why-­does-­Ken-­Loach-­loathe-­country-­much.html. Elliott, Marianne. 2000. The Catholics of Ulster. New York: Basic Books. Gibbons, Fiachra. 2000. Truth and Nail. The Guardian. Accessed 5 October 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2000/apr/10/artsfeatures. northernireland. Ging, Debbie. 2013. Men and Masculinities in Irish Cinema. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Hill, John. 2006. Cinema and Northern Ireland. London: British Film Institute. McCafferty, Nell. 1981. The Armagh Women. Dublin: Focus Ireland.

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McDonald, Henry. 2006. Playwright Hits Back Against Intimidation. The Guardian. Accessed 5 October 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/ uk/2006/jan/29/northernireland.henrymcdonald1. McIlroy, Brian. 1988. Irish Cinema: An Illustrated History. Dublin: Livia Press. McLoone, Martin. 2011. Film, Television and the Troubles. Dublin: Arts Council of Northern Ireland. O’Toole, Fintan. 2008. ‘Hunger’ Fails to Wrest the Narrative from the Hunger Strikers. Irish Times. Accessed 5 October 2022. https://www.irishtimes.com/ news/hunger-­fails-­to-­wrest-­the-­narrative-­from-­the-­hunger-­strikers-­1.913725.

CHAPTER 7

The Kids Are Alright: Adolescent Unionism

A notable absence in the films analysed so far is the lack of a clear articulation of unionist political ideology or perspectives about the conflict. Any previous attempt to do so has been complicated by unionist characters also being motivated by more nefarious concerns. For example, in films such as Nothing Personal (O’Sullivan, 1995) and Resurrection Man (Evans, 1998), there is an element of defending one’s community or one’s country communicated, however, this motivation is very much overshadowed by competing motivations of ethnic cleansing, bloodletting and financial gain. A clearer articulation of why young males may have been drawn to loyalist paramilitarism does start to appear in cinema from 2009 onwards with the release of two films analysed in this chapter, Five Minutes of Heaven (Hirschbiegel, 2009) and ’71 (Demange, 2014). In these films, adolescent male characters are endowed with dialogue which can be understood to communicate a more moral yet authentic motivation for turning to violence and paramilitarism. In this way, the type of depictions of unionism can be seen to closer resemble typical portrayals of republican paramilitaries than previously had been discernible. It also reflects the change that has occurred in cinema about the Troubles and has followed the general direction of post-conflict politics in Northern Ireland, as the conflict is no longer generally presented as being incomprehensible and inevitable, but rather a result of political and social problems. Richard Kirkland argues that this recalibration allows for two things: “Firstly, it indicates that, despite everything, the Troubles were explicable and © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Gallagher, Screening Ulster, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23436-1_7

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subject to rational understanding and, secondly, it assumes that, as a structural problem, the violence was resolvable” (Kirkland 2017: 19). The focus on youth can also be seen to be part of a wider trend in post-­ conflict cinema about Northern Ireland where young people begin to dominate films about the conflict. As well as the feature films that depict unionists examined in this chapter, children also appear prominently around this time in “Troubles films” such as The Mighty Celt (Elliott, 2005) and the short film, Boogaloo and Graham (Lennox, 2014). This can be seen to reflect the fact that the figure of the child resonates significantly in regard to the history of the conflict given that a great number of children experienced sectarian violence. In total, 257 people aged under 18 were killed, many at the hands of the state (Smyth 2019). In these films, adolescents are used to occupy a mobile position within the social imaginary of the conflict. Lucy Newby and Fearghus Roulston explain: While, at times, they are popular cultural symbols for the worst problems affecting society, associated with a rise in “social delinquency” (violent crime or interpersonal aggression), paradoxically, they are also mobilized as the “innocent” victims of conflict-related pressures and, recently, as symbols of hope for enacting final and lasting peace. (Newby and Roulston 2019: 23)

Indeed, two films that represent this paradox, Good Vibrations (Barros D’Sa and Leyburn, 2013) and Shooting for Socrates (Erskine, 2015), also depict young unionists and will also be the focus of analysis in this chapter.

Previous Depictions of Adolescents Unionist adolescents being used to articulate both their respective community’s view of the conflict and the associated motivations are not an entirely new phenomenon as teenagers being employed in such a manner can also be identified in an earlier outlier, Nothing Personal. In O’Sullivan’s film the teenage unionist boy, Tommy (Rúaidhrí Conroy), and the teenage nationalist boy, Liam (Ciarán Fitzgerald), both of whom flirt with paramilitarism, clearly articulate their views of the conflict and provide an explanation as to why young men may be drawn to violence. Whilst walking a girl home, Tommy explains to her his belief that he is defending “his people” and “his country” whereas similarly the young Liam explains, in the aftermath of a riot, that the other side would have “slaughtered us for sure if they’d have got to us”. This belief causing the characters to engage

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in violence or consider engaging in violence to protect their community is an approach that is deployed again in the films examined within this chapter. A ‘Troubles film’ with adolescents as central protagonists is also nothing new; the narrative in Terry Loane’s 2005 film, Mickybo and Me (Loane, 2005), focuses on a budding friendship between two young Belfast boys divided by both religion and class and all that inevitably entails when living in Northern Ireland in 1970. However, the film is unlike many of the others analysed in this chapter as it offers little in the way of an explanation for why unionist adolescents are drawn towards paramilitarism. In fact, in the film, it is a young Catholic boy who eventually resorts to violence. Nevertheless, an examination of the film is worthy of inclusion here given that it is one of the first feature films to focus on the lives of young children during the conflict. Despite the political leanings and perspectives of the characters never being made explicit, with even their religion only really being discernible by an initiated audience, Loane’s film also comments significantly on the peculiarities and differences between the two entrenched communities in Northern Ireland. An adaptation of a play by Owen McCafferty, Mickybo and Me was financed with the aid of lottery funding, at this point distributed through the Northern Ireland Film Council and produced by the British production company Working Title Films with the help of the Irish Film Board. A reflection of the Northern Irish state at the time, which discriminated against Catholic nationalists in terms of jobs, housing and voting rights, it is the young Catholic boy, Mickybo (John Joe McNeill), that is presented as working-class, whereas the young Protestant boy, Jonjo (Niall Wright), is presented as middle-class (Farrell 1980: 87). This dynamic is enforced in many ways, perhaps most notably in the accents and attire of the two boys, but it is also apparent from such themes as Jonjo’s family having disposable income to spend on the likes of ice cream whereas Mickybo’s family think of even rubber washing-up gloves as a luxury. The area Jonjo lives in also contains such middle-class identifiers at the time as a playground and ice-cream selling café outlets. In contrast, seemingly the only recreational facility in Mickybo’s area—described in the film as being an area in the Holylands area of South Belfast called Palestine Street—is the local pub where his ostensibly unemployed father (Adrian Dunbar) spends most of his time. Mickybo’s area is also characterised by the potential for violence as evident from men being searched by the army, a bomb going off one night (resulting in the darkly comic event of Mickybo finding a

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severed finger) and his father’s killing in the pub towards the end of the film. Having returned from ‘the other side of the bridge’ on an occasion one evening Jonjo’s worried mother (Gina McKee) is relieved to see him and states, “You can’t be out this late, it’s not safe”. Commentary on the two communities is also evident from the stereotypes the film reproduces such as the Protestant boy coming from a one-­ child family whereas the Catholic boy comes from a large family. Appearances also seem to be the least of the Catholic family’s problems whereas the Protestant family is always seen as being well-dressed. On one occasion, fixing his tie in the mirror, Jonjo’s father (Ciarán Hinds) even offers his son advice concerning presentation such as always making sure your shoes are polished. He tells his son, “you can tell the worth of a man by his shoes”. The film also conforms significantly to patterns of representation in which a solemn unionist is depicted as transforming as a result of exposure to the conviviality of nationalist culture. It is exemplified in Mickybo and Me by Jonjo’s character evolving as the film progresses and as he becomes influenced by Mickybo and his Catholic family. This is most obvious in the connecting sequences near the beginning and end of the film where a shy Jonjo is initially duped by Mickybo’s mother (Julie Walters). Answering the door, she teases, “Is it Mickybo you’re looking for? Well son, it is a terrible thing, but we had to sell him to the Gypsies. Broke my heart. But what had to be done, had to be done”. Later Jonjo is prepared for such behaviour, which is noticeably absent from his own home life, and shows himself to be anticipating it with glee. However, as he has encountered Mickybo’s mother in a more sombre mood due to the death of her husband, this tragically stops his progression short in this regard and signals the dark turn the narrative takes which results in Mickybo stabbing Jonjo after showing himself to be deeply affected by the circumstances of his father’s death. In contrast to Jonjo’s transition throughout the film, any influence he has over Mickybo’s character or actions is minimal. When understanding the conventions of film narrative and the requirement for the central protagonist to evolve in some capacity, this could perhaps be expected given that Jonjo is the main protagonist and narrator of the story. However, the specific nature of Jonjo’s transition, following such patterns of representation and stereotypes more widely, results in this approach being viewed as yet another commentary on the differences between the two communities.

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Another way the film conforms to patterns of representation can be identified by how both the ostensibly nationalist and unionist families interact with the police when the boys, living out a fantasy inspired by their viewing in the cinema of the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Hill, 1969), go missing. Although it could, like much of the film’s observations, be understood as a commentary on class differences, the depiction of Jonjo’s family’s encounter with the police is typical of cinema’s predilection for associating unionism with the state. Establishing a congenial relationship, officers sit indoors in the living room sipping tea which has been presented to them in a cup on a saucer as they are provided a picture of Jonjo to circulate. In comparison, the police’s encounter with Mickybo’s family is presented as being much more hostile; they stand outside the family’s terraced house as Mickybo’s parents stand in the doorway, his mother hastily trying to remove a photograph from its frame to give to them to circulate. The placement of one of the officers also stresses the hostile nature further as he is positioned with his back to the outside wall of the house vigilantly looking up and down the street.

Intermittent Violence and Flag Disputes The films analysed in detail in this chapter were made at a time, during the period from 2009 to 2015, when Northern Ireland was continuing to transition from conflict to peace. The biggest threat to this hard-fought peace came from dissident republican factions disillusioned with the peace process. March 2009 was a significantly ill-fated month in this regard as two British soldiers were shot dead in an attack that wounded four others outside their barracks near the town of Antrim. The soldiers were the first British troops killed in Northern Ireland since 1997 (Horgan 2013: 57). Several days later, in a separate attack by dissident republicans in Banbridge, Co. Down, a PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) officer also became the first police officer killed in Northern Ireland since 1997 (Ibid.). Both events caused concern about a possible re-emergence of sustained conflict in the region, and intermittent bouts of violence carried out by loyalist paramilitaries and dissident republicans did continue throughout this period. A significant period of unionist mobilisation and civil disobedience occurred at this time beginning in the aftermath of a decision by Belfast City Council, in line with British government guidelines regarding the flying of the Union flag from government buildings, to limit the number of days the contentious Union flag would fly from Belfast City Hall.

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Unionists, perceiving this decision as part of a wider ‘culture war’ against Britishness in Northern Ireland, protested throughout the region and on the night of the vote, rioters attempted to storm the City Hall. This period of civil disobedience known as the “Flag Protests” would become a daily occurrence and continue for months. The protests would often turn into riots and result in loyalists clashing with authorities; Police would be attacked with petrol bombs and other missiles, occasionally responding with water cannons and plastic bullets (BBC 2013a). According to the PSNI, some of the violence was orchestrated by high-ranking members of the UVF and UDA (BBC 2012). In politics, a key dispute emerged during this time over what to do with the site of the Maze prison. The location of many key events during the Troubles, most notably the 1981 hunger strike depicted or referenced in a significant number of films, examined within this book. The suggestion put forward that the site should be repurposed as a conflict transformation centre was, after much public debate between political parties, rejected due to mostly unionist fears that it would become a shrine to republican prisoners (McDonald 2013). This was a fear that was in no doubt owing in large part to the generally favourable depiction of the hunger strikers and other republican prisoners in cinema as discussed in the previous chapter. Unionists also voiced concern about it being repurposed as a national sports stadium (Ibid.). Interestingly, the idea of it being used as a conflict transformation centre was initially agreed by the DUP and the party’s new leader Peter Robinson, who replaced the Reverend Ian Paisley as leader of the DUP and First Minister of Northern Ireland, only for them to eventually renege on the agreement they had made with Sinn Féin. During this time, Paisley would also retire somewhat from the media spotlight and pass away in September 2014. Despite this changing of the guard within political unionism, events such as the ‘Flag Protests’ and objections about what to do with the Maze prison would again do little to dispel the belief that unionists were wholly intransigent and incapable of compromise.

The Republican Dominance Continues? In addition to the films focused on in this chapter, other films to depict the Troubles at this time are Shadow Dancer (Marsh, 2012) and A Belfast Story (Todd, 2013). James Marsh’s Shadow Dancer continues the tradition

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of cinema focusing on characters from the nationalist community and omits any depiction of the unionist community entirely. The film also includes a similar plot, a narrative about an IRA informer’s relationship with their malevolent British special forces’ handler, to the earlier 2008 film Fifty Dead Men Walking, although more of a justification for IRA violence is presented. Nathan Todd’s A Belfast Story is something of a comically uninformed film that seems blissfully unaware, among other things, of the irony apparent in its central narrative. The film nevertheless got a nationwide release in Irish cinemas in 2013. A Belfast Story also focuses solely on republican violence and its affects whilst omitting any depiction of unionists or loyalist violence entirely. In this way, it exemplifies Martin McLoone’s claim that the ignoring of loyalism in films about the Troubles also suggests that republicanism has been solely responsible for the violence (McLoone 2008: 196). In fact, this issue is perhaps more noticeable in Todd’s film than any other. On certain occasions, the central protagonist, known only as Detective (Colm Meaney), is described by other characters as a “unionist” or “loyalist policeman” however this is never validated. As the murderers he hunts are widely suspected to be loyalists, given that ex-IRA combatants are being killed, he dismisses the idea that they are responsible for the killings in a similar fashion to protagonists in earlier films—most notably Divorcing Jack—by alluding to the perceived incompetence of paramilitaries of the loyalist variety. Speaking of the clever tactics the murderers are using to kill people and conceal their identity, he states, “Loyalists weren’t capable of this, even at their height”. Incidentally, in a preposterous twist, the killers are found to be peace-loving gunmen who wish to set a better example for their children to that which they see in society by bringing about a peaceful united Ireland through their often ultra-violent bloodletting. A significant portrayal of unionism does appear on television during this time. Broadcast by Channel 4 in 2010, by virtue of it being a biopic of former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland during the years of the peace process, Mo Mowlam, Mo (Martin, 2010) portrays two real-life notorious loyalist paramilitaries who she had dealings with, Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair (played by Marc O’Shea) and Michael Stone (played by Ian Beattie).

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Five Minutes of Heaven (2009) Five Minutes of Heaven, released in 2009, marks a real progression in terms of unionist representation as it deals with unionism, specifically loyalist paramilitaries, more sympathetically than any film that went before. The film, which was directed by the German filmmaker, Oliver Hirschbiegel and written by English screenwriter Guy Hibbert, won both the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Literary Prize, an award intended to promote peace and reconciliation in Ireland, and an international ‘Cinema for Peace’ award (Kirkland 2017: 23). However, whether the somewhat pioneering depiction of unionists was taken into account or not is debatable. The international nature of the production is reflected further by the fact that the film received funding from the BBC, Northern Ireland Screen, Screen Ireland and the French film production and distribution company Pathé. The narrative is quite unique also as it is both a period piece and a contemporary reflection. Richard Kirkland describes Five Minutes of Heaven as being among several films made around the same time “that are in different ways shaped by the peace process as a historical event and which grant its abstract negotiations a material form” (Kirkland 2017: 13). Its prologue reconstructs the real-life historical killing of 19-year-old stonemason Jim Griffin by 17-year-old Alistair Little in Lurgan in 1975, and the rest of the film depicts fictional events 33 years later in the life of Alistair and Griffin’s brother, Joe, including their eventual meeting. The film’s prologue, a sequence lasting approximately 21 minutes that depicts the premeditated nature of Jim Griffin’s murder, is particularly interesting in terms of unionist representation. Firstly, it clearly presents the motivation for a young unionist to engage in violence at the time. A fade in presents a young Alistair (played by Mark Ryder) looking into the camera and exposition is provided by an older Alistair’s narration (the older Alistair is played by Liam Neeson). Archive footage of republican violence is used synchronously with the narration to reinforce the young Alistair’s motivation and to help explain his diminished agency due to the world that he found himself in, including particularly affecting footage of Bloody Friday, a day of IRA bombing in Belfast in 1972. The narration begins: For me to talk about the man I have become, you need to know about the man I was. I was 14 when I joined the Tartan Gangs and I was 15 when I joined the Ulster Volunteer Force. At that time, don’t forget there were

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riots on the streets every week, petrol bombs every day and that wasn’t just in our town; when you got home and switched on the TV, you could see it was happening in every other town as well and it was like we were under siege. Fathers and brothers of friends were being killed in the streets and the feeling was we’d all have to do something. We are all in this together and we’d have to do something.

This is an example of Alistair being presented in a similar manner to how nationalist paramilitaries are traditionally presented in fiction film, particularly Hollywood productions in the 1990s. It suggests Alistair had no other self-respecting course than to turn to violence. The real Alistair Little’s description of what led him to carry out the murder also reflects similar concerns. He states: I joined the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) when I was a lad. I joined because I wanted to avenge the death of my friend’s father, who had been shot dead by Republicans. I remember going to the funeral and seeing his young daughter. She had been shot in the legs screaming for her daddy. I thought my father would be next, and at the age of 14, I vowed that if I ever had the opportunity to retaliate, I would. (Little 2010)

A parallel can also be drawn between the film’s opening and the real life of loyalist paramilitary member turned politician, David Ervine. This is a parallel that is perhaps acknowledged by the filmmakers given their decision to include archive footage of ‘Bloody Friday’. Growing up in a working-­ class unionist community, Ervine claims that the events of ‘Bloody Friday’ motivated him to join the UVF in an attempt to protect his community (Sinnerton 2002: 30). Referring to the bombings, Ervine discloses: It was a sense of belonging to a community. That community was massively tense. Where’s the next attack coming from? The sense of being under siege, that sense that this is against us. This is not against the rule of law, it’s about people. They’re killing our people. (Ibid.)

This approach to representation is in stark contrast to previous depictions of loyalist paramilitaries, however, in several ways the film stops short of being a truly pro-unionist film in the sense that some earlier films are undoubtedly pro-nationalist. Firstly, the nature of Alistair’s motivations are presented as being naive, and this is signalled in the film’s opening line, “For me to talk about the

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man I have become, you need to know about the man I was”. The second mention of the word ‘man’ is obviously used ironically to highlight Alistair’s juvenility here given that the narration goes on to explain that Alistair was still a child when he joined the Tartan Gangs and the UVF.1 Further visual signifiers of Alistair being at a transitory period in his life can be identified at this point such as his shirtless adolescent body which he can be seen studying in the mirror as the narration is heard. This is followed by a close-up of him squeezing a spot on his face. The gun and ammunition that he later uses in the killing of Jim Griffin is found hidden in a toy chest along with what is seemingly his childhood belongings and which ironically includes a plastic toy gun; also, as he loads the ammunition into the weapon his hand visibly shakes conveying inexperience at handling such a weapon. As pre-arranged, after carrying out the killing and torching the stolen car, the gang attend the local nightclub in order to act as if nothing was unusual and avoid raising suspicion. Going through the door, the women applying a “permission to enter” stamp ironically chastises Alistair the way a teacher or parent would a child who is likely to commit a minor transgression by saying, “behave yourselves”. The gang of four walk onto the dance-floor, the camera closing in to a mid-shot of the young Alistair with a confident look on his face suggests that the immature claims made earlier that they would be walking into the bar like they are “ten feet tall” and that they would be like “fucking James Bond” has materialised as a result of their actions. Similar to previous films to depict young loyalist paramilitaries, in particular Nothing Personal (O’Sullivan, 1995), motivation for joining paramilitaries is again presented as being due to a typical pubescent desire to attract female attention. Here, a girl on the dancefloor makes eye contact with the young Alistair to which he responds with a self-­ assured nod. The intention to present the young Alistair in this manner may be to allow the audience to sympathise with the character but it also has the effect of belittling his motivations and presenting them as naive and juvenile. The approach also brings into question how an adult articulating such a motivation would be received. The casting of a critical eye back to Cal (O’Connor, 1984)—a film with a similar narrative that involves a remorseful adult nationalist protagonist instead—also results in the 1  For more on the Tartan Gangs, see Gareth Mulvenna’s (2016) Tartan Gangs and Paramilitaries: The Loyalist Backlash.

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question being posed as to why such a presentation that stresses the character’s immaturity was deemed necessary. Secondly, the rest of Hirschbiegel’s film presents Alistair as deeply remorseful and determined to make amends for his crime. In contrast somewhat to his actions attracting female attention, he is seen to live alone in a small sparsely decorated city-centre apartment, his narration working in combination with the mise-en-scène to tell of his lonely existence. At no point does he seek to justify his or other loyalists’ actions and it is not clear if he even remains a unionist; in the film he is seen freely traversing both nationalist and unionist areas, seemingly not truly affiliated to either. At one point he meets up with a loyalist, and although they are seen to greet each other cordially and talk in a loyalist pub, Alistair’s narration tells us of the two different paths both of them have taken after the peace process: Some of us have found an answer, he’s killed a few Catholics in his time and now he’s killing his own … some protection thing to control the estate. Released after the Good Friday Agreement, he’s on top of the world again. Still living it like he always was with his mates watching his back—breathing in the scent of his victories. If I had gone with him then, just said yes to him then, it’s all I had to do. Just tell him I was in. I know that isn’t my answer, but what is my answer?

Alistair’s actions as the narrative develops are also presented as being necessary for Joe (James Nesbitt) to finally realise that his desire for revenge is incompatible with his paternal role as father to his two young children. Kirkland explains that for this reason “it becomes clear that he must accept the narrative of post-conflict reconciliation as rehearsed by Alistair” (Kirkland 2017: 22). This conflict is resolved when, in a moment of realisation after a dramatic confrontation with Alistair, Joe breaks down in a victim’s support group meeting and then rings Alistair to tell him, “We’re finished”. This acknowledgement also has a cathartic effect on Alistair who, overwhelmed, drops to a knee midway crossing the street in Belfast city-centre before he moves on and a metaphorical weight is lifted from him suggesting he may finally have found his answer. Another way the film subverts traditions of representation can be identified in its representation of the relationship between loyalist paramilitaries and the British state. Differing significantly from previous films that depicted loyalist collusion with state security services, and therefore a harmonious relationship between the two, in Hirschbiegel’s film the young

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UVF gang of four headed by Alistair are depicted as being fearful of being caught by the British Army. This is depicted in the sequence leading up to the killing of Jim Griffin where the gang, in a getaway car they had earlier stolen, are unfortunate to get stuck at traffic lights behind an Army vehicle that contains soldiers looking out the back of it. The cars close proximity to the soldiers even allows for the driver to dramatically make eye contact with one of them. The young gang, aware of the likelihood of a car comprising four youths being pulled over and searched, are fearful to such an extent at this point that all except the driver have crouched down in the footwells. Their fear is further expressed at this point by the frantic tone of their whispers and heavy breathing. This sequence is the first time that loyalist paramilitaries are presented as being the enemy of the British state in this very direct manner and depicts unionism as possessing an oppositional nature that has been downplayed significantly in cinema up to this point. In keeping with the approach the film takes more generally, it is also a further demonstration of loyalist paramilitaries in the film much more resembling typical depictions of republican paramilitaries. Good Vibrations (2013) Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn’s 2013 film, Good Vibrations, is a biopic of Terri Hooley (played by Richard Dormer), a prominent figure in the Belfast punk scene during the years of conflict. Written by Glenn Patterson and Colin Carberry, the film was funded by both Screen Ireland and Northern Ireland Screen. It depicts unionist adolescents in an opening sequence where neighbouring children shoot a young Terri in the eye with a bow and arrow whilst playing Cowboys and Indians. Their motivation for doing so is due to Terri’s socialist father being a “Fenian lover” and a “communist”, terms directed at the young Terri preceding the attack that also identify the young assailants as being likely to belong to the unionist community. This real-life event is depicted as being instrumental in Terri ironically steering clear of sectarianism in later life and, in general, the action of the film takes place with the Troubles only serving as the background to the story of how Hooley and the Belfast punk movement overcame insurmountable odds to succeed in offering an alternative to violence and sectarianism. However, some depictions of both loyalist and republican paramilitaries are present with both, for a large part of the film, being depicted as mirror images of each other. In fact, despite both sides being involved in violent

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attacks and attempted violent attacks on Terri and his friend, the political identity of both is only made clear when Terri seeks to bribe them with records in a bid to avoid his store being targeted by either side. He brings the rivals together in a pub and tells them, “See when this shop opens, there’s to be no coming round looking a donation for the republican prisoners or the loyal Orange widows.” After an agreement is seemingly made, Terri speaks to one of the loyalists (played by Adrian Dunbar) who warns him that it is the younger generation of loyalist paramilitaries he needs to worry about. Gesturing towards two young skinheads loitering at the back, he claims, “It’ll take more than a few LPs to buy them off.” Like David Caffrey’s earlier film, Divorcing Jack (McCaffrey, 1998), the young loyalists resemble typical far-right groups as they sport skinheads and are attired in Dr. Marten boots and Harrington jackets. The association of loyalism with the far-right is more warranted here than in Caffrey’s film as a knowing audience will identify the young skinhead characters as being notorious loyalist paramilitaries and—for a short period—far-right punk musicians, Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair and Sam “Skelly” McCrory. Referring to a demo tape of which the two characters later demand Hooley produce a record, Gareth Mulvenna explains: To the initiated we are left in no doubt that the two skins are meant to be Johnny Adair and Sam McCrory and the demo tape is that of the lamentable Offensive Weapon. Offensive Weapon was Adair and Skelly’s homage to renowned fascist Ian Stuart’s band, Skrewdriver. (Mulvenna 2013)

Furthermore, it is claimed that Hooley and Adair have history as Hooley allegedly was hospitalised by an Adair-led UDA gang after refusing to pay him protection money (Get Into This 2017). Although events do not play out in exactly the same way in Barros D’Sa and Leyburn’s film, the first encounter between the two loyalist paramilitaries and Hooley occurs after Hooley offers sanctuary in his record store to a young punk that Adair and McCrory have been chasing. In this confrontation Hooley bars them from his premises; in return one of them, presumably Adair given as the other (despite being referred to as ‘Hatchett’) is likely McCrory because of the placement of a distinguishing tattoo on his neck, threatens Hooley by saying “I know people, I could have you shot”. Alluding to his youthfulness, Hooley responds, “I know the same people you know. I could have you sent to bed without your supper.” The young Adair (John Travers) later makes good on his threat that sooner or later he

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is going to get Hooley by beating him up in the aforementioned sequence where he demands Hooley produce his demo. In this sequence, the two youth’s far-right politics is confirmed when Adair tells Hooley, “Thought you might be interested in our demo tape. We were going to call it ‘The Only Good Wog is a Dead Wog’. But then we thought ‘The Only Good Taig …’ and then we thought ‘The Only Good One is a Dead One’, cover pretty much everything”. Terri’s response—that he’d “rather sell bog-roll than Nazi shite like that”—precipitates the beating. The young loyalists can also be understood to differ greatly from that of elder loyalists such as the character played by Dunbar. For one, the attire is very different with the older loyalists generally sporting long hair and wearing checked shirts and leather jackets. There is also more of a respectability attached to the older paramilitaries—both republican and loyalist. The film depicts them, albeit in a stylised exhibitive flashback lacking in detail, as having once been much more nuanced and complex in a time before the Troubles and Terri describes them as having been an array of anarchist, marxist, socialist, passivist and feminist friends. He goes on to explain that after the first shot was fired and the first bomb exploded, he suddenly did not have them anymore and just had “Catholic friends and Protestant friends”. Later, when Terri’s friend is kidnapped and tortured, he describes Dunbar’s character and his goons as their “old anti-war friends” who are now “a bit more pro-war these days”. The film is something of an outlier in this regard as the other films looked at in this chapter can be seen to use youth to indicate a more positive future or to use adolescent unionists as a vessel through which to articulate unionist perspectives of the conflict. However, in Good Vibrations, it is quite the opposite. It is the younger generation, who have known nothing other than conflict, who are unthinking, one dimensional and more likely to perpetuate violence rather than the older generation who are more tolerant seemingly due to remembering a time before the Troubles. In saying this, the older generation of loyalists still do not articulate any unionist politics or ideology. In fact, mostly due to the film being primarily concerned with celebrating Hooley’s scant regard for those involved in violence or partisan politics, in general, the film’s depiction of unionist characters generally resembles the type of abject depictions in earlier films. Parallels with earlier films can also be found in how Good Vibrations was received by some; Mulvenna offers one criticism of the film when he states, “In the recent hagiography of Terri Hooley, Good

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Vibrations, the Protestant working-class are lambasted and stereotyped as being right-wing and unthinking”. However, despite the film clearly furthering the abject representation of unionists in regard to them being presented as intolerant, uncompromising and violent, it also somewhat subverts traditions of representation on occasion. As the elder loyalist paramilitaries are bought by Hooley with his record collection and the younger loyalists are seen engaging in a creative pursuit (even though it does celebrate far-right extremism), the film’s depiction of unionists engaging in art that is not of the Orange variety has to be considered something of a progression as it presents them as more nuanced and less uncultured than is the norm. The loyalist character played by Adrian Dunbar even refers to Hooley’s music collection by using the term “LPs”, identifying him as something of a music connoisseur or insider. ‘71 (2014) ‘71 (Demange, 2014) is a film directed by French-Algerian filmmaker Yann Demange and written by Scottish playwright and screenwriter Gregory Burke. Released in cinemas in 2014, the film was funded and produced with the aid of Film Four, the British Film Institute, Screen Yorkshire and Creative Scotland. As the name suggests, the narrative is set in 1971 and follows a young British soldier, Gary Hook (Jack McConnell), on his first tour of Northern Ireland. Having only been in Belfast a matter of hours, Hook is quickly caught up in the escalating violence of the conflict when he gets separated from the rest of his unit in the nationalist west of the city. Forced to flee from Provisional IRA gunmen, he finds himself straying further into the unknown. What follows—to an extent—resembles typical narratives of soldiers getting trapped behind enemy lines, however, a uniqueness is brought to proceedings given that neither the enemy nor the war can be thought of in a conventional sense. The characters he meets as he traverses through unfamiliar territory and seeks a route back to safety, as Newby and Roulston explain, “each serve to aid or hinder his progress, but all are marked by a potential for, or prediction of violence” (Newby and Roulston 2019: 27). Many characters that make up the environment that Hook finds himself are adolescents; the first encounter Hook has is with children who throw rocks and taunt his army unit. This comes much to the soldiers’ amusement, however, it does prefigure the much more severe violence that is to come when a child

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steals one of the unit’s guns and instigates a series of events that leads to a young soldier’s killing and Hook getting stranded. A character that aids Hook’s progress is another unnamed child (played by Corey McKinley), this time loyalist and from the Shankill Road, who is nevertheless marked by a potential for violence as well. Again, like the young Alistair in Five Minutes of Heaven, the portrayals of unionist youths noticeably differ significantly from portrayals of adult unionists. Kirkland attempts to explain how children can function differently than adults in films about the conflict when he states that filmic representations rely predominantly on binary tropes, but that such binary tropes can be defied or haunted by the agency of children (Kirkland 26). As much as this is true and can be evidenced in films such as Terry Loane’s Mickybo and Me and Tim Loane’s short film Dance Lexie Dance, binary tropes, such as those discussed at length previously concerning unionists, can also be defied by children’s diminished agency. In both Five Minutes of Heaven and ‘71 it is precisely the diminished agency that defies binary tropes; audiences can be understood to empathise with both the young Alistair and the young loyalist played by McKinley and see them as products of their environment. That it can be understood audiences would respond to the characters in such a way is remarkable also given that both characters are markedly unionist and clearly articulate justifications for political violence. Given the lack of articulation of unionist political positions or justifications for political violence seen elsewhere in cinematic portrayals of unionists, this raises the question as to whether adults—who can be understood to be in possession of an agency not typically afforded to children—would be received in the same way. Hook first meets the young loyalist after he is involved in the petrol bombing of a nationalist area during a riot. Not knowing to which side he belongs, Hook grabs the child fearing that he will otherwise draw attention to him. Just before this, the youngster can be heard shouting “Fucking Catholic bastards” at the direction of the bombing; indeed, he shouts sectarian abuse throughout his interactions with Hook. Upon finding out that Hook is a soldier, the boy offers to show him the way back to the barracks. As a wary Hook follows, the curious and noticeably intelligent child questions whether the soldier is Catholic or Protestant and tries to deduce this information from his surname. He also proudly explains to Hook how the Royal Ulster Rifles, an infantry regiment of the British Army—to which his father and grandfather belonged—were the only ones to reach the German lines at the Battle of the Somme. He also goes on to add,

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“None of you English did, yous are rubbish at fighting.” In this way, Demange’s film communicates something which cinema has largely failed to do so far and that is express how Northern Irish unionists see themselves as a vital component of the United Kingdom rather than merely being obedient to Britain. The youngster then relates his intentions and his understanding of why the army has been deployed to Hook when he says, “It’s good that you are here now, so we can get on and kill these Fenian bastards once and for all”. He then adds a rationale for possessing such a desire that simultaneously can be seen to diminish his agency and create empathy for him. He says, “They killed my Da, IRA bastards. They are going to kill us all.” This echoes the previous claim made by Alistair in Hirschbiegel’s film, that his community felt like it was under siege and that a reaction from within it was urgent and necessary. As previously mentioned, this approach to depicting a unionist adolescent is also identified in Nothing Personal when the teenage Tommy justifies the carrying of a gun by explaining that the paramilitary gang he is on the fringes of are defending their people and their country. In Demange’s film, the young unionist character’s screen time proves short-lived as he meets a tragic end when, after taking Hook to a loyalist bar, a bomb explodes prematurely in a backroom. The fact he doesn’t have a name proves quite appropriate at this time as in his untimely and violent death he comes to embody all children lost to the conflict. This theme is also explored in the film’s conclusion when a young nationalist character who has just saved Hook’s life is unnecessarily killed by a soldier. The film’s portrayal of adult unionists more resembles previous depictions of loyalist paramilitaries than seen elsewhere in cinema at this time. Our first encounter with such characters does not give the sense that they are to be revered given that the confrontational young child, owing to him being the nephew of a feared loyalist leader, visibly intimidates them. It is also the incompetence of the older loyalist paramilitaries that results in the bomb exploding prematurely killing many of their own people including the young boy. The bomb being given to them by members of the Military Reaction Force means loyalist paramilitaries are again clearly depicted as colluding with British state security services. The Military Reaction Force was a controversial covert unit of the British Army that operated in Northern Ireland during the conflict before being disbanded in 1973 and which former members have acknowledged killed unarmed civilians (BBC

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2013b). In the film, they are most clearly seen colluding with loyalists but towards the end of the film they can also be seen to collude with individual members of both the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA. However, in keeping with general perceptions about collusion with loyalists being more widespread, the fact that it is individual members of the republican paramilitaries that the Military Reaction Force talk to presents this specific type of collusion as being more clandestine and unusual. The Military Reaction Force is ultimately presented as being the malevolent force orchestrating all the violent events which occur. This also marks the film out as being unique in that it suggests that the enduring nature of the conflict, if not the cause, is down to the British state’s manipulation. Given as Hook is witness to them colluding with the loyalists and providing them with the bomb, he is also targeted by them, his status as a fellow British soldier doing nothing to dissuade them from wanting him dead. Shooting for Socrates (2015) Shooting for Socrates is a film directed by James Erskine that was released in cinemas in 2015. Produced with the aid of Northern Ireland Screen, Channel 4 and RTÉ, the film is a fictionalised retelling of the real-life exploits of the Northern Ireland national football team at the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico. It also shows events from the perspective of a fictional, enthusiastic football supporter from East Belfast, Arthur (Richard Dormer), and his son, Tommy (Art Parkinson), whose 10th Birthday coincides with the biggest match in Northern Ireland’s history. Erskine’s film is unique as, given the Northern Ireland football team is generally supported only by those from the unionist community today (although it is true the nationalist community have been more receptive to the team in the past), it can be considered perhaps the only film made with a unionist audience in mind. Northern Ireland Screen’s funding of the film could also be understood to signal a desire by the organisation to amend somewhat for the absence of the community in previous films. Although Shooting for Socrates strives to be a feel-good story and a narrative about football overcoming hostilities and sectarianism, it does largely resist the urge to present a simplistic picture of how the team is supported wholly from both sides of the community. In fact, the film deserves credit for traversing the difficulties in presenting the Northern Ireland team and its complicated identity admirably. It acknowledges that the unionist community generally supports the team as all fans are

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identifiably unionist. One exception is the local community belonging to a Catholic Northern Irish player, David Campbell (Nico Mirallegro), who resides in the town of Letterkenny in the Republic of Ireland; the County Donegal community is presented as cheering on the Northern Irish team, however, a noticeable omission of flags such as those depicted in a Belfast pub and an individual cheer when Campbell’s name is announced suggest that it may be the local player they have come to cheer rather than the team and what it represents. The majority of screen time is devoted to the Northern Ireland team’s players and staff as well as media personnel who accompany them to the tournament in Mexico, notably football commentator, Jackie Fullerton (Conleth Hill). The religion of the players and staff is identified on occasion and indeed playing for and supporting the Northern Ireland national football team could be seen as expressing unionist cultural identity, however, the film avoids any signalling of political allegiances. Therefore, portrayals of unionists are largely confined to the scenes involving the fictional young Tommy and his father. Although Tommy doesn’t articulate political rationale or justification for political violence to the same extent as other adolescent unionist characters in films at this time, it is notable that a child is again involved in scenes where unionist characters are identified. This is first recognised in a sequence in a pub where Tommy accompanies his father to watch the Northern Ireland team play England on television. Hearing that both the England and Northern Ireland teams use the same national anthem, ‘God Save the Queen’, he asks his father, “Why’s the English ‘God Save the Queen’ the same as our ‘God Save the Queen’?” His father’s answer identifies him as unionist when he replies, “There is only one United Kingdom son.” A woman objects, “But the Scottish and the Welsh don’t sing it” and further establishing at least the supporters in the Belfast bar as unionist, another man answers loudly proclaiming, “That’s cause they’re traitors”. This type of language can be seen to have an influence on the young Tommy in a later scene as he displays sectarian traits after experiencing loyalist rioting in the aftermath of the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement. At this point, he is also influenced by the words of Ian Paisley who he watches on television through a neighbouring front window. Referencing the ongoing rioting, Paisley is heard proclaiming, “This is just the result of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. We were told we were going to get stability and peace and reconciliation. I said it was a recipe for war and it has been a recipe for war.” Upon returning home, Tommy relates what he has seen of

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the rioting to his father, Arthur. “It was brilliant,” he declares, “Our ones are firing stones at the army to get at the Catholics.” A troubled Arthur responds by asking, “Our ones? Who’s our ones?” To which the boy responds, “Protestants, who you think?” After Arthur later reads the boy a bedtime story—fittingly a book by the Protestant Belfast-born novelist, C.S.  Lewis—they discuss the night’s events. Tommy: Arthur: Tommy: Arthur: Tommy: Arthur: Tommy: Arthur: Tommy: Arthur:

What are they rioting about, Daddy? You don’t know? And you took sides? No, I didn’t. Our ones? When Mammy and I argue, whose side do you take? Nobody’s, I just turn the TV up. What if we started throwing bricks at each other? Don’t be daft. Could be the only way to settle it. How do you and Mammy sort it out? Compromise. Look it up in the morning.

Arthur is a rather stereotypical unionist in some respects; he is seemingly privileged due to having a stable skilled job working at the shipyards as one of Harland and Wolff’s crane drivers. In other ways he can be seen to defy traditions of representation significantly as he is an articulate non-­ sectarian influence on his son and often seen reading a book—even owning a book about the Greek philosopher Socrates that his son confuses with the revered Brazilian footballer of the same name who plays against Northern Ireland in the World Cup and gives the film its title.

Conclusion As much as some traditions of representation remain, unionists are noticeably depicted more favourably at this time with perhaps the character of Arthur in Erskine’s Shooting for Socrates being the most favourable and nuanced depiction of a unionist found in cinema so far. Paramilitaries in general at this time are also presented more naturalistically in terms of attire and accompanying mise-en-scène and a clear articulation of unionist perspectives of the conflict and justification for paramilitary violence can be identified—the likes of which we had previously seen articulated by nationalist characters. However, this seeming progression in representations of unionism does have to be tempered by the fact that many of the

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characters depicted are children, visibly depicted as lacking in agency and therefore still allowing for the characters to be empathised with by audiences. This is a narrative device that can previously be understood not to have been necessary in earlier films when nationalist characters were articulating political positions and justification for republican violence. Despite also focusing on younger elements of unionism, a significant outlier at this time is Barros D’Sa and Leyburn’s Good Vibrations. The depictions of the young skinheads in particular much more resemble previous portrayals of unionists. Whereas youth has been used to signal a more positive future in ‘Troubles films’, in Good Vibrations it signals an escalation of conflict. However, older loyalists in the film are depicted with more complexity, even forewarning of the violent and uncompromising youth that is to follow them. Although collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and the British security services would remain a key theme in ‘71, more of a departure from traditions of representation concerning the British state’s relationship with unionism can be identified at this time. Much like the Anglophobic shout of “C’mon Northern Ireland, get the boot into them English bastards!” in a unionist pub when the Northern Ireland football team plays England in Shooting for Socrates, the young loyalists in Five Minutes of Heaven being fearful of the British Army does attempt to characterise unionism as being more oppositional in nature. The young loyalist in ‘71 further defies traditions of representation and more of an attempt is made to address the complexity of the unionist identity; his claim that British soldiers from Northern Ireland made it to German lines first at the Battle of the Somme firmly presents unionists not as being servile to the British state but as being an integral part of it.

References BBC. 2012. Loyalist Paramilitaries ‘Behind Some Northern Ireland Trouble’. BBC. Accessed 5 October 2022. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-­northern-­ ireland-­20651159. ———. 2013a. Belfast Flags Trouble: Plastic Bullets Fired at Protesters. BBC. Accessed 5 October 2022. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-­northern-­ ireland-­20940126. ———. 2013b. Undercover Soldiers ‘Killed Unarmed Civilians in Belfast’. BBC. Accessed 5 October 2022. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-­24987465.

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Farrell, Michael. 1980. Northern Ireland: The Orange State. 2nd ed. London: Pluto Press. Get Into This. 2017. Terri Hooley’s Teenage Kicks: The Story of Good Vibrations and the Godfather of Ulster Punk. Get Into This. Accessed 5 October 2022. https://www.getintothis.co.uk/2017/03/terri-­hooleys-­ teenage-­kicks-­story-­good-­vibrations-­godfather-­ulster-­punk/. Horgan, John. 2013. Divided We Stand: The Strategy and Psychology of Ireland’s Dissident Terrorists. London: Oxford University Press. Kirkland, Richard. 2017. Visualising Peace: Northern Irish Post-conflict Cinema and the Politics of Reconciliation. Review of Irish Studies in Europe. 1: 12–25. Little, Alistair. 2010. Alistair Little (Northern Ireland). The Forgiveness Project. Accessed 5 October 2022. https://www.theforgivenessproject.com/stories-­ library/alistair-­little/. McDonald, Henry. 2013. Ukip Joins Campaign Against ‘Peace Centre’ on Site of Maze Prison. The Guardian. Accessed 5 October 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/may/09/ukip-­campaign-­peace-­centre-­maze-­prison. McLoone, Martin. 2008. Film, Media and Popular Culture in Ireland: Cityscapes, Landscapes, Soundscapes. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. Mulvenna, Gareth. 2013. Loyalism: The Protestant Working Class and Popular Culture. Longkeshinsideout. Accessed 5 October 2022. https://www. longkeshinsideout.co.uk/?p=2018. ———. 2016. Tartan Gangs and Paramilitaries: The Loyalist Backlash. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Newby, Lucy, and Fearghus Roulston. 2019. Innocent Victims and Troubled Combatants. In Representing Agency in popular culture: Children and Youth on Page, Screen and In Between. London: Lexington Books. Sinnerton, Henry. 2002. David Ervine, Unchartered Waters. Kerry: Brandon. Smyth, Marie. 2019. Half the Battle: Understanding the Impact of ‘The Troubles’ on Children and Young People. CAIN Archive. Accessed 5 October 2022. https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/violence/cts/smyth1.htm.

CHAPTER 8

The End of ‘Troubles Cinema’?

The frequency of films that depict the Troubles can be seen to steadily decrease as time has moved on from the worst of the violence; therefore, naturally so has the release of films that depict both unionists and nationalists. In the 1980s and 1990s, at least two or three films a year were released in cinemas that can be understood to be about the conflict in some manner. In contrast, in the previous chapter, exploring the period from 2009 to 2015, the number of films released halved to about one a year. Similarly, only eight comparable films have been released over the last six years (2016–2022); they are The Truth Commissioner (Recks, 2016), The Journey (Hamm, 2016), The Foreigner (Campbell, 2017), Bad Day for the Cut (Baugh, 2017), Maze (Burke, 2017), Penance (Collins, 2018), Wildfire (Brady, 2021) and Belfast (Branagh, 2022). All these films typically follow the well-established pattern of focusing on nationalist characters or themes with only a few depicting unionists in any significant way. However, Irish nationalist and Northern Irish unionist characters do feature more frequently on television at this time and most notably in comedy or drama series The Fall, Derry Girls, Peaky Blinders, Silent Witness, The Crown, This Time with Alan Partridge and Bloodlands; in The Fall and Peaky Blinders Northern Irish unionist characters even feature prominently. David Ireland’s darkly satirical play Cyprus Avenue, which steadfastly sticks to traditions of representation, about a unionist character who believes his granddaughter is the former republican leader Gerry Adams, was also broadcast on the BBC in 2019. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Gallagher, Screening Ulster, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23436-1_8

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However, to find substantial unionist representation at this time in fiction films that received a cinematic release the scope has to be widened from just ‘Troubles films’ and commentary on unionists in Northern Ireland has to be found elsewhere even if it is somewhat indirect. Such commentary can be found, quite inexplicably given that previously it was almost entirely confined to films about the Troubles, in films with narratives far removed from the conflict such as Danny Boyle’s T2: Trainspotting (Boyle, 2017) and, although it is a brief portrayal, the Coen Brothers’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Ethan and Joel Coen, 2018). Without attempting to claim that the period of conflict does not still resonate significantly in Northern Irish society, the decrease in films being made on the subject of the Troubles or its legacy could be the natural result of time moving on from the worst of the violence. It can certainly be understood that international attention has moved elsewhere and politically minded directors, the kind of which used to make films about the conflict, no longer attach such urgency to issues to do with Northern Ireland. As previously discussed in detail in Chap. 6, since 2001, Hollywood production companies have almost entirely shied away from subject matter to do with conflict in Ireland. Given Hollywood’s previous attraction, the seeming loss of interest in films about the conflict can be understood to be a major factor behind the reduction in films produced. Another reason is policymakers in Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland Screen wishing to cast off the region’s unwelcoming image and reputation. Stephen Baker argues that the instrumentalist approach that has been adopted in post-conflict years has come at the cost of a politically engaged cinema and of Northern Ireland being treated by film and television producers as anything other than “a mere location for economic activity far removed from the cultural lives and experiences of people who live there” (Baker 2016: 180). Baker’s view is influenced by the reduction in films being produced that are of cultural significance and, partly owing to tax breaks and ‘assistance funding’, Northern Ireland’s emergence as a key global location for high-cost Hollywood film and television productions.1 For example, some of the many big-budget film and television shows that have used Northern Ireland as a location in recent years include Game of Thrones, Line of Duty, Dracula Untold, The Frankenstein 1  Northern Ireland Screen provided the producers of HBO’s Game of Thrones £6.05 million of ‘assistance’ for the pilot and first two series. A significant return on that investment resulted in other future financial incentives being awarded to HBO (Baker 2016: 180).

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Chronicles and Your Highness. Baker also claims that film has played a complementary role in Northern Ireland’s metamorphosis in this regard for quite a while and that Northern Ireland being seen to be ‘open for business’ is one motivation for its image on screen being transformed, specifically in the period where ‘Troubles comedy’ dominated, from “one of interminable bloody conflict to a much more pacified and domesticated version” (Baker 2016: 175). Another reason for the decrease in the production of films about the Troubles can be understood by looking at how those funding film productions have evolved. As evidenced in this research, one of the major producers of films about Northern Ireland has historically been Channel 4’s film production arm, Film Four. The remit of Channel 4 and Film Four had been seen to be more conducive to depictions of unionism and the Troubles; Channel 4’s remit stressed the importance of offering a platform for alternative views and Film Four’s was committed to making indigenous British productions, especially original screenplays on contemporary social and political issues (Hill 1999: 56). However, several factors have affected the Troubles suitability for exploration in films produced by the company. Firstly, an increasingly multicultural United Kingdom has meant that the attention once afforded to Northern Ireland and communities within now must be divided amongst other concerns and minority groups. Andrew Higson explains that the idea of Britishness has expanded and that Film Policy had to not just be aware of the “differences of the various nations and regions that make up the United Kingdom, but also the various cultural and ethnic identities that have developed in those spaces” (Higson 2011: 46). Secondly, triggered by Channel 4 combining its production, sales and distribution activities under the umbrella of Film Four Ltd in 1998, a fundamental change to Film Four’s operations occurred and Channel 4’s film output became more commercial in scope. Higson states that the launch of Film Four Ltd. “signalled a departure in their production and funding policy, away from the innovative and often risky low-budget fare with which they had made their name and towards more expensive international co-productions” (Higson 2011: 18). In fact, also partly due to the founding of the Film Council in 2000, renamed the UK Film Council in 2003, the British film industry in general can be understood to have steered away from the making of risky and culturally significant films, the kind of which were conducive to narratives about conflict in Ireland, in favour of more risk-averse commercially focused films. Higson claims that given the UK Film Council’s commitment to “a

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commercially viable industry, many of its policy directives were designed to encourage avowedly populist, commercial filmmaking of a kind that would win wide audiences” (Higson 2011:41). Of the recent films that have been produced, significant depictions of unionists only appear in The Journey, T2: Trainspotting, Maze and Belfast. It is therefore these four films that this chapter will analyse in detail. A focus will be on how, despite depictions of unionists being more nuanced, comprehensive and favourable since the turn of the century, a reverting to type has largely occurred in recent years as regards traditions of representation being reinforced and the cinematic deficit being strengthened.

The Union Under Threat Arguably the period of the greatest sustained threats to the union in 100 years has occurred over the past decade. These threats to the union would come not just from inside Northern Ireland but also from outside it. Sinn Féin, Ireland’s most ardent republicans and the party that was once the political wing of the Provisional IRA, have become the biggest political party in both the Republic and Northern Ireland. Worryingly for unionism, this has also come at a time when the unionist vote in Northern Ireland has been steadily dropping; at the 2017 Assembly election in Northern Ireland—by virtue of the fact that more people voted for non-­ unionist parties than unionist—unionism lost its majority in the devolved Northern Irish parliament for the first time since its inception (McClafferty 2017). In 2014, a referendum on Scottish independence from the United Kingdom was held. Although the result went in favour of unionists, the closeness of the result put Scottish independence firmly on the agenda for the main pro-independence party in Scotland, the Scottish Nationalist Party. The party’s dominance at subsequent elections has also done little to suggest that the matter is settled and polls have recently shown a majority now exists for independence (Matchett 2020). If Scotland does gain independence, this could cause something of an existential crisis amongst unionists given how tied up some Northern Irish unionist identities are with a Scottish interpretation of Britishness. Further instability was caused in 2016 as the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union whilst a clear majority of people in Northern Ireland and Scotland voted to remain part of the political and economic union. The decision to leave caused years of upheaval within the British

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establishment, owing in large part to the fact that a customs border of any kind on the island of Ireland was unworkable and not in keeping with the hard-fought peace process in Northern Ireland. It also can be understood to have caused many people to re-evaluate their relationship with Britain and reinvigorate the nationalist desire for a united Ireland free from British rule. A similar dynamic can be seen to occur in Scotland where the United Kingdom leaving the European Union against the wishes of one of its constitute parts can be understood to be the main reason behind a majority now seemingly being in favour of independence. This resentment and desire for change could have existential consequences for the United Kingdom in the near future. In Scotland, the Scottish Nationalist Party is committed to holding a second Scottish independence referendum and, in Northern Ireland, a referendum on Irish unity in the near future seems likely. All of this has resulted in both the future of the United Kingdom, and what unionist identities will look like, being uncertain.

The Journey (2016) The Journey is a film, directed by Nick Hamm and written by Colin Bateman, who also wrote the aforementioned 1998 film, Divorcing Jack (Caffrey, 1998). The film was produced with the help of Northern Ireland Screen and is a fictional account of unionist leader Ian Paisley and republican leader Martin McGuinness’ journey of reconciliation and forgiveness that culminated in the October 2006 St. Andrew’s Agreement. The film is quite unique as—unlike many films about Northern Ireland and the Troubles—it focuses almost entirely on real-life political figures. The narrative revolves around Paisley (Timothy Spall) wanting to get home to attend his 50th wedding anniversary whilst attending peace talks in Scotland between Sinn Féin, the DUP and the prime ministers of the United Kingdom and Ireland. The unionist leader’s desire to get home in time provides the perfect opportunity for all involved to attempt to get the notoriously stubborn Paisley to compromise. The film generally reverts to type by presenting the violence of the Troubles as inexplicable and the communities that Paisley and McGuiness represent as being wholly outside the influence of a benevolent British state. This is exemplified by the choice of archive material used during the credit sequence at the beginning. The voice of an unknown person who is

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presumably a civilian during the Troubles gives a rather simplistic take on the conflict when she states, “It’s really only a tit-for-tat thing, kill a Catholic, kill a Protestant, it’s returned.” However, this is not the only way the film conforms as, principally owing to the narrative heavily relying on McGuinness and Paisley’s oppositional nature, many traditions of representation in regard to portrayals of unionists can also be identified when analysing the film’s depiction of the unionist leader. Although he eventually becomes, as in real life, somewhat less embattled and more compromising as the film progresses, Paisley is generally presented as being uncultured and hard line. His intransigence is apparent from the outset as, implying that it is solely Paisley and the unionists he represents that are the obstacle to peace and reconciliation, it is McGuinness (Colm Meaney) who concocts the initial plan to try to get Paisley to compromise by accompanying him back to Belfast. This perception is also reinforced in several ways throughout the film. In a brief overview provided at the beginning that describes Paisley and McGuinness’ relationship, Paisley is described as a “firebrand minister famous for his anti-Catholic rhetoric and the fierce defence of his Protestant and British heritage”. The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair (Toby Stephens), also can be seen to share the view that Paisley is the biggest obstacle by enjoying a joke with a character that works for MI5 called Harry Patterson (John Hurt). When discussing the 50th wedding anniversary, referring to Paisley’s nickname “Dr. No”, Patterson jokes, “It was the last time he said yes to anything”. At this time, Patterson also implies that the only reason he is hopeful of an agreement now is not due to Paisley’s innate character or unionism possessing the capability to compromise but rather because of the value he bestows onto the maxim and what he ostensibly considers a universal truth, “Old men care about their legacy”. On three occasions throughout the film, in contemplative moments, Paisley can also be seen to be haunted by his previous rabble-rousing speeches and specifically, his authoritative intransigent demand of “We say never, never, never”. This use of flashback and the incorporation of archive audio and video footage heightens the drama by presenting Paisley as being torn over whether to compromise or not. However, it also simultaneously reminds the audience of the extent of Paisley and unionism’s intransigence, a technique designed to make the pay-off at the film’s conclusion, when Paisley accepts McGuinness’ terms, seem all the more worthy and sensational. The audience is further reminded of Paisley’s historic intransigence and intolerance when McGuinness discusses some of

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Paisley’s outrageous behaviour over the years such as calling the Pope the antichrist in the European Parliament, describing the European Union as a Catholic super state and seat ‘666’ in the parliament as being reserved for the antichrist. Other events in the past brought up by the republican leader include Paisley inciting people to burn Catholic’s out of their homes and starting the ‘Save Ulster from Sodomy’ campaign to prevent the decriminalisation of homosexuality. When pressed by McGuinness, Paisley confesses to still believing these actions to be just. Typically, Paisley is also depicted as being uninterested in popular art forms whilst McGuinness is presented as being significantly cultured in comparison; in this way, the film follows in traditions of representation that sees a contrast created between unionists’ world of work and nationalists’ world of culture. As both men are driven to the airport, the unionist leader’s disdain for forms of art that did not conform to his religious fundamentalist worldview is explored in a conversation where McGuinness makes fun of Paisley’s aversion to dancing; the act of dancing generally received the ire of Paisley who considered it sinful. McGuinness: What was it you said about dancing? Not just dancing, but line dancing? Poor, inoffensive, line dancing. Paisley: For your information, line dancing is as sinful as any other type of dancing. With its sexual gestures and touching, it’s an incitement to lust.

Later in the scene, the film comments on Paisley’s distain towards cinema as Paisley had a history of protesting and seeking censorship of films to which he did not approve. McGuinness is shocked when Paisley tells him he has not been to the ‘pictures’ since 1973 and asks him what he went to see. Paisley responds by saying, “I didn’t go to see anything. I was protesting outside.” The republican leader then engages in a guessing game as he tries to determine which film it was that Paisley protested against in 1973, eventually reaching the conclusion that the film was The Exorcist (Freidkin. 1973). His ability to offer suggestions as to what film it might be, such as The Sting (Hill, 1973) and Enter the Dragon (Clouse, 1973), and eventually guessing correctly depicts McGuinness as something of a cinephile and is in stark contrast to Paisley’s ignorance. At other times in the film, McGuinness also demonstrates an in-depth knowledge of the filmography of Samuel L. Jackson and is identified as a reader of the work of John Grisham. Indeed, further marking him out in contrast to Paisley, McGuinness is presented with nuance and depth never afforded

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Paisley and this is most notable when, early on in the car journey, McGuinness declares an interest in cricket—a sport not typically supported by people in Ireland from the nationalist tradition. This peculiarity is even remarked upon in the film by the car’s driver (Freddie Highmore) when he tells the republican leader, “Aren’t you like Irish or something? I just didn’t think the Irish liked cricket”.

T2: Trainspotting (2017) T2: Trainspotting is a film directed by English director Danny Boyle and is a sequel to Boyle’s earlier 1996 film Trainspotting (Boyle, 1996). Like the earlier film, T2: Trainspotting is also based on the work of Scottish author Irvine Welsh and produced with the help of Film Four. Despite both stories being set far removed from the Troubles and in contemporary Scotland, a scene depicting Scottish loyalists in a Glasgow pub does feature briefly in the second film. Although the depiction is of Scottish loyalists, the scene is still of interest to this research given that it does say a considerable lot about unionism in general; the central protagonist— through his narration—even provides exposition by recanting a brief history and anthropological understanding of the loyalist identity. The film’s profligate protagonists are attracted to the loyalist bar by Mark Renton’s (Ewan McGregor) plan to pickpocket the clientele on account of him having a theory that he will be able to deduce the pin code belonging to their bankcards. He explains to them before entering, “This place is a gold mine, it’s a certainty. I mean, these are people who have been abandoned by their political class but at least they have what we don’t, a sense of identity; an identity encapsulated in four digits.” He then stretches out his arm to reveal, scribbled onto it, four numbers that he implies will be their likely pin code, “1690”. Renton and Sickboy (Jonny Lee Miller) enter and begin to pickpocket people unbeknownst to the club’s patrons who sing along to karaoke and principally songs associated with Rangers football club and loyalism more widely such as ‘The Blue Sea of Ibrox’. Triggered by the camera panning past a mural painted on the inside wall of the pub that depicts the Battle of the Boyne and the victorious William of Orange, Renton’s narration offers further exposition as he explains: The Battle of the Boyne was fought in 1690, between two rival claimants of the British and Irish thrones. James II, Catholic, and William of Orange,

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Protestant. The battle was decisive, the Protestants won but 400 years later the uncompromising and victorious loyalists now feel estranged from the modern secular United Kingdom. The sectarian songs have now been banned, but they still gather and remain loyal to the victory of 1690 and to a simpler, less tolerant time. But if nothing else, history has shown us very clearly these are people whom it is unwise to provoke.

As Renton and Sickboy attempt their getaway, Renton is forced to make another clever deduction when an intimidating bouncer with a crown tattooed on his neck stops them and demands that they play a song given that they “aren’t from ‘round here”. Renton’s low opinion of the club’s patrons is found to be comically justified when, taking his cue from an Orange Lodge banner adorning the wall behind him, he desperately improvises a simple two chord song which pleases them due to it recounting the Battle of the Boyne and including the repeated line, “There were no more Catholics left”. Despite the song’s lyrics seemingly desiring ethnic cleansing, the pub’s clientele—after a brief dramatic silence—eventually cheer and sing along to it with glee. Encouraged by Renton’s bay, “Aye, fucking right”, after the rousing chorus, the crowd begins to descend onto the dance floor in a manner that can appropriately be described as marching. The sequence ends when at the ATM later that night, Renton discovers that his plan has worked as the majority of pin codes belonging to the cards he has stolen are “1690” as he has suspected, a development that also can be understood as the film affirming his base understanding of the unionist identity. Several traditions of representation are at play here and unlike in previous films, stereotypical understandings of the unionist community are actually articulated directly by the protagonist’s narration and affirmed by the film’s action. Influenced by decades of hard-line and intransigent behaviour from unionists, the mention of the word “uncompromising” in Renton’s narration is typical of how unionists have been portrayed in cinema. However, in Boyle’s film, it is also understood that this uncompromising, insular mindset in the face of an increasingly secular and tolerant world and the lure of having a solid fixed identity that can be epitomised in four simple digits is central to why the loyalist identity still exists. This approach, in turn, strips the loyalist identity of any political validity. This insularity is manifested in the behaviour of the loyalists depicted most notably in their cheering and singing along to Renton’s improvised sectarian song. Other patterns of representation identifiable include the setting

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of this sequence in a pub full of drunken revellers that continues the onscreen association of unionists with alcohol and working-class bars. Like many of the films analysed previously, specifically those produced in the 1990s, unionism is also associated with violence. This association is initially implied by Sickboy’s warning to his girlfriend before entering the bar that if they are not back in an hour, she should call the police and tell them “we’re dead”. Renton’s narration “history has shown us very clearly these are people whom it is unwise to provoke” can also be seen to summon loyalist excesses of the past whilst the intimidating bouncer’s demands that they sing a song is also understood to imply that there is a violent alternative to his demands. Although this approach can be understood to heighten drama by amplifying the sense of danger the protagonists are in as they carry out their heist, the film simultaneously reinforces patterns of representation that highlight loyalism’s proclivity for violent sectarianism.

Maze (2017) Maze is a film released in cinemas in 2017 that was directed by Dublin-­ born filmmaker Stephen Burke and is based on a true story, that of the 1983 Maze prison escape where 38 republican prisoners escaped the maximum security Maze prison that had been described as one of the most escape-proof prisons in Europe.2 The film was funded by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland with the television license fee and produced with the help of RTÉ and the Irish Film Board. Referred to by republicans as ‘The Great Escape’, the event is celebrated as one of the Provisional IRA’s greatest achievements, and often controversially due to the break-out resulting in a prison officer being killed (Mac Donncha 2017). In 2020, referring to one of the architects of the escape, Bobby Storey, the Sinn Féin MLA Gerry Kelly lauded both Storey and his role in the operation when he stated: Thirty-seven years ago 38 Irish Republican prisoners were getting into a lorry at H7 and heading to the front gate of Long Kesh and freedom. One of Big Bob’s best ops! I had the privilege of the front passenger seat. Well someone had to check we were taking the right route out! (O’Neill 2020) 2  Another film about the same subject had also been reported to be in development around the same time as Burke’s was released. The film was to be directed by Jim Sheridan, the director of previous films mentioned in this research such as In The Name of the Father and The Boxer. However, it ran into financial difficulties (RTÉ 2017).

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Given the subject matter, the film is naturally in line with republican thinking regarding the event and can be understood to treat the event in a similar celebratory manner. The film also marks a return to the extremely favourable depictions of republicans found in earlier films. Republican characters are portrayed as protagonists in a righteous prison escape and are mostly depicted as clever, organised, above sectarian trivialities and deeply sympathetic on occasion. This is particularly true of the film’s central protagonist, the real-life Provisional IRA member Larry Marley (Tom Vaughn-Lawlor) who was assassinated by loyalist paramilitaries in 1987, several years after his release. The 1981 republican hunger strike, immortalised in previous films, also plays a key role as the film is set in their aftermath. The motivation for escaping the prison is also presented as being to raise the morale of republican prisoners, to show the British state that the end of the hunger strike did not mean defeat for republicanism and to honour a debt to those who died. Unionists play a key role in the narrative in the first part of the film. The introduction of loyalist prisoners into the story is set up by the opening title card that reads, “Republicans leaving the blanket protest are moved to wings with loyalist prisoners. Both groups are enemies, on opposite sides of the Northern Ireland conflict”. The oppositional nature of the two groups is further established as when Marley enters the wing, he is immediately accosted by an intimidating group of loyalist prisoners who crowd around him. As with most recent films, a more naturalistic approach to how paramilitaries are attired and presented can be identified. However, on occasion, the pattern of representation that finds loyalists to have bolder and more urban attire is apparent. Republicans are presented as more rural, wearing woollen jumpers and hats and generally having longer hair and beards, whereas loyalists tend to be more groomed and can be seen wearing leather jackets and T-shirts with colour and branding. An outspoken loyalist, Kenny (Stefan Dunbar), taunts Marley by saying, “The blanket men are all mad they say. You don’t look so scary. Does he? Buried any of your IRA mates lately? What’s that rumbling I feel? Aw, I’m starving.” Similar dynamics are identifiable in this film as in earlier films, specifically those involving unionist prison officers. The unionists, both prison officers and prisoners, find themselves dwarfed and embarrassed by the majesty of the recent republican hunger strike and the sacrifices made. As a result, the jokes aimed at republican prisoners, such as the attempt at humour by Kenny, seem not only heartless but also fatuous and childish.

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In a number of ways, Burke’s film and its prison wing setting can be seen to operate as a microcosm of Northern Irish society. Kenny threatens the new republican prisoners only to be taken aback and visibly intimidated when it is pointed out to him that there are now more republican prisoners than loyalist. The shift in demographics on the wing and Kenny’s reaction can be seen to mirror demographic shifts in the outside world that are often understood to be a source of unionist fear and paranoia. Perhaps mirroring collusion between security services and loyalist paramilitaries, loyalists are also depicted as being fierce defenders of the prison officers. In turn, this also continues the tradition of representation where unionists are depicted as wholly obedient to the British state. When a prison officer, Gordon (Barry Ward), angrily confronts the republicans after an attempt has been made on his life, the loyalists purposefully stand behind him. Making their support for the prison officer abundantly clear, Kenny tells him, “Want us to sort them out for you Gordon, just say the word.” This display of obedience by the loyalists also alarms the architects of the prison escape as they believe loyalists will be an obstacle in the carrying out of their escape plan, such is their support for the prison officers. In response, Gordon affirms his apolitical nature that separates him from prison officers looked at earlier by replying curtly, “I don’t want anything from you”. More of a parallel with previous depictions of prison officers can be identified when analysing Gordon’s home life. Drawing comparisons with McQueen’s Hunger (McQueen, 2008), the prison officer’s wife, Jill (Niamh McGrady), is seen briefly and functions to illustrate the fear expressed by the families of members of the security services at this time. At first, in front of her and her young daughter, an attempt is made on her husband’s life by a republican gunman in a car park; this then results in her and her daughter moving out of the family home in fear of another attack occurring and resenting Gordon for carrying on with his job. Despite no clear unionist markers being identifiable in the depiction of Gordon or his family, an initiated audience will know that the majority of security service personnel were unionists and perhaps also associate her anxiety with unionist fears at this time more generally. The theme of the wing operating as a microcosm becomes more obvious in a later scene where loyalist prisoners, as they did in real life, hold an Orange parade in the wing with makeshift Orange collarets, drums and banners to celebrate the Twelfth of July. Whereas in real life the makeshift equipment was of a reasonably high standard, the absurd nature of this event is highlighted in the film as the orange collarets are amateurishly

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made out of folded cardboard and the banner out of a bed sheet. The film takes further artistic license due to it conflating bandsmen and marchers; for example, those wearing collarets also play tin ‘drums’ that are hung around their necks. The noise of these ‘drums’ also provide a comical and unintimidating sound which increases in absurdity as it gets louder and the loyalists approach the republicans who look on in bemusement. Mirroring the type of confrontation that was common between Orange Order marchers and Irish nationalists and a further example of unionists being depicted as hard line and uncompromising, violence inevitably ensues after an intransigent Kenny makes a declaration. Kenny:

Stand aside Taigs. It’s the Twelfth of July and today we march where we please in our own country. Republican: Not here you don’t, kid. From here on it’s a republican area. That makes it a bastard free zone. Kenny: Did we move to Dublin when I was kipping fellas? No. I didn’t think so. All roads here are British, every last one.

The prison officers breaking up the fight and beating the marchers to cries of “traitors” can also be understood as a foreshadowing of how violence at parades would evolve in later years into unionists feuding with police. However, as in Good Vibrations (Barros D’Sa and Leyburn, 2013), Burke’s film does create a contrast between the generations of loyalist prisoners. This is demonstrated when in a scene prior to both sides beginning to fight, an older loyalist, Henry (Lalor Roddy)—who has been more passive in his dialogue with Marley—stands between the younger warring factions and pleads for discussion and the negotiating of a “fair solution”. This contrast is also marked in the aftermath of the fight; the younger loyalists furiously wreck their cells by throwing furniture at the walls whereas Henry lies contemplatively in his bed. In the next sequence, when loyalists must vacate the wing after republicans win the right to have it all to themselves, an incensed Henry asks the prison officers, “Who runs this place, you? Or them?” This question can also be understood as a foreshadowing of what would come in Northern Irish society and a further example of the wing operating as a microcosm. Henry’s anger mirrors the anger unionists would often espouse later when Irish republicans, and specifically former republican prisoners of the Maze, would enter into government and decision-making roles in Northern Ireland.

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Belfast (2022) The Kenneth Branagh-directed film Belfast perhaps offered more potential for depicting the unionist community than any other film. It was produced with the help of Northern Ireland Screen and was hugely successful both critically and commercially, breaking with the unfortunate tradition of films with Northern Ireland’s capital city in the title—such as A Quiet Day in Belfast (Bessada, 1974) and A Belfast Story (Todd, 2013)—being met with derision. Similar to Hunger, the film’s considerable acclaim, the notoriety of the director and the film being produced a considerable amount of time after the conflict had ended can also be said to have resulted in the film being viewed through a different cultural context than many of the films about the conflict that went before. However, also like McQueen’s film, Belfast largely still ascribes to many patterns of representation regarding unionist representation and portrayals of Northern Ireland. Branagh embarks upon a journey rarely taken, as he becomes a filmmaker from the unionist community who tells a story of the Troubles, which is a particularly interesting development for this research. Branagh was born into a Protestant north Belfast family before moving to England at the outbreak of the Troubles when he was aged nine. However, as evidenced by his saluting of “the fabulous island of Ireland” in his acceptance speech when the film won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, describing him as a unionist may be problematic (Shoard 2022). This is also in keeping with how the Belfast-born novelist and screenwriter Ronan Bennett, as mentioned earlier, lists Branagh as being one of the creatives from a ‘Protestant’ background that has had to discard unionist culture to achieve artistic fulfilment (Bennett 1998: 210). The film even has significant auteur credentials given that it is written, directed and produced by Branagh and is semi-autobiographical, focusing on the period in Branagh’s young life that led to his family leaving Northern Ireland. The veteran filmmaker has even described the film as being “his most personal film” and about “coming home” (Rubin 2020). A focus on Branagh’s young life and the character that represents this, Buddy (Jude Hill), also sees the film contribute to the trend of stories about the Troubles being seen through the eyes of an adolescent, producing similar commentary to that produced in earlier films. Buddy’s innocence, and to a lesser extent his older brother and cousin’s innocence, is in stark contrast to the hostility that surrounds them and, in juxtaposition

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with the feel-good nature of the film, this produces a harrowing reminder of how many children experienced violence during the conflict. Although children in previous films often acted as symbols of hope for enacting lasting peace, Buddy’s forced migration from Belfast in the film’s concluding coda means he comes to instead represent what was lost as a result of the conflict. This is an understanding reinforced by the film’s dedication at the end, “For the ones who stayed, for the ones who left and for all the ones who were lost”. Early in Belfast, the family attend a church service that features a bellicose speech by a clergyman seemingly styled on the Reverend Ian Paisley. Pa (Jamie Dornan), the patriarch of the household, also briefly remarks that he has “nothing against Catholics, it’s the religion that I fear”. This echoes a statement made by a bigoted unionist character, played by Ray McAnally, in the 1984 film, Cal (O’Connor, 1984). However, as the conflict intensifies, the apolitical nature of the family is stressed. Not choosing a side is even presented as the most difficult stance to take, and this difficulty eventually proves to be a significant factor in the family being forced to move away. As evidenced by screen depictions of the conflict that went before, it’s hard to imagine a nationalist family being quite so apolitical at this tumultuous time. Therefore, despite the film’s obvious potential in representing unionists, it largely conforms to type and, disappointingly for this research, engages very little with unionist politics and culture. Despite this, the anxieties of the unionist community are explored. The community’s uniqueness and deep roots in Ireland are expressed by Buddy’s mother, Ma (Caitríona Balfe); when her husband suggests moving to England she tearfully tells him: If we go over the water they aren’t going to understand a word we say. Half of them will take the hand out of us for sounding different, and the other half, they’ll hate us cause men here are killing their young sons on our streets. They’ll think we don’t give a shite. You think they’re going to welcome us with open arms and say “come on in, well done for stealing the house off us”?

This is an expression of the community’s isolation culturally and geographically both from Britain and from the Republic of Ireland. It is a unique perspective of the unionist community and it is also contrary to the words of a neighbour earlier in the film who jokingly remarks, “The Irish were born for leaving, otherwise the rest of the world would have no pubs.

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(…) All we Irish need to survive is a phone, a Guinness and the sheet music to Danny Boy.” As in previous films, there are examples of how the Protestant family is privileged in their relationship with the security services and the state. As is typical in films of this type, the political context is communicated through radio and television news reports, seemingly without there ever being a notable reaction from Buddy’s family. Once, when British Prime Minister Harold Wilson discusses the lack of civil rights for nationalists in Northern Ireland, Buddy’s mother abruptly switches off the television. On another occasion, she gestures for the soldiers stationed nearby to come and help her husband move a sofa indoors which they quickly do without reservation. In a sequence similar to a scene in Mickybo and Me (Loane, 2004), she is also portrayed as having such a congenial relationship with a police officer that he is invited into the living room and provided with tea and cake. When leaving, she affirms the closeness of their relationship by heartily telling him “all the best now, and give my best to Josie”. It is notable also that Buddy doesn’t appear to get punished by the police officer despite him knowing of Buddy’s shoplifting. All of this reinforces the tradition of representation that sees the unionist community privileged by having such an affable relationship with the state’s security services. This type of portrayal also affirms that unionists were living in a state made specifically for them. The depiction of loyalist paramilitaries again sees the film ascribe to traditions of representation; loyalists are first seen imposing themselves on Buddy’s street and their idyllic way of life with a demand of their fellow Protestants to “Get these fuckers [Catholics] out of your street”. They go on to warn, “If you talk to the police, we’ll be back for you too”. Leaving no doubt as to their sectarian intentions, someone can also be heard shouting from a distance, “Get the Catholics out”. These men then proceed to break the house windows of Catholic homes and set fire to a car. As the film progresses, loyalists continue to be seen as imposing figures; the two loyalist characters—appropriately both called Billy—who interact with the family are introduced when they interrupt the children’s football game in the back alley. This further signifies that their presence is a disruption and that they are making life on the street increasingly inhospitable. The choice to use a filmic device that conveys a character’s power, the close-up of a foot being placed on top of the ball bringing its trajectory to a halt followed by a panning upwards, further communicates a threat in this regard. They then proceed to engage in a “little chat” with Pa. The location of

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this encounter is also appropriate; much like the underground sewer where loyalist paramilitaries are found in The General (Boorman, 1998) and the night-time scenes involving the loyalist gang in Resurrection Man (Evans, 1998), the location of the street’s back alley conveys that these men have intentions to conspire and are on the outside of civilised society. Pa’s interaction with them includes him being threatened and asked for either “cash” or “commitment”. A little while later, what happens when their demands are not adhered to is revealed when the loyalist chief punches a disloyal neighbour as he stands in his doorway. A scene where a loyalist surrounded by the British Army frantically takes a young Buddy, his mother and his cousin hostage is another occasion where this predilection towards ruthlessness is particularly identifiable.

Conclusion It will remain to be seen whether this downturn in frequency of films about the Troubles becomes permanent. Given Hollywood’s current lack of interest in the conflict, the changing nature of British and Irish cinema, the popularity of television dramas and the distance from the worst of the conflict becoming greater it is likely that the trend will continue. However, the significant critical and commercial success of Branagh’s Belfast could be one reason to think otherwise. Despite this downturn, previously an evolution in terms of depictions of unionists could be identified, particularly in the films made after the turn of the century. The four most recent films to depict unionists looked at in detail in this chapter complicate this perception of a linear progression towards a more nuanced and fuller representation due to the films relying heavily on stereotypes and traditions of representation. Portrayals of nationalists can also be seen to return to type. Nationalists feature more in the films released at this time and the portrayal of republicans in two films in particular, Stephen Burke’s Maze and Martin Campbell’s The Foreigner, much closer resemble the type of depictions found in Hollywood films of the 1990s. In Maze, Provisional IRA prisoners are depicted favourably and their actions celebrated whereas in the action thriller The Foreigner—as in earlier action films—it is made clear that the murderous republican villains are not the IRA but a rogue republican splinter group whose actions are detrimental to what would otherwise be a morally just republican cause. Given that American production companies were involved in funding and producing The Foreigner, it can

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also be understood to mark the return of the United States’ involvement in ‘Trouble’s cinema’ for the first and only time since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It will remain to be seen whether this is an aberration or a sign of things to come. The cinematic deficit at this time could have been even more pronounced if Jim Sheridan’s film, also about the 1983 Maze prison escape, that was in pre-production at the same time as Burke’s, had not run into financial difficulties. As well as the four films analysed in detail in this chapter, other films with a less significant portrayal of unionism also do little to rescue unionism’s abject reputation. The infamous loyalist paramilitary gang, the Shankill Butchers, are briefly referenced in Bad Day for the Cut. The film is a revenge genre film that transports action to rural Ulster and the leader of a criminal gang, played by Susan Lynch, considers her henchman’s stabbing of people to be a step too far even for her heinous gang. She tells him, “I know you like fucking around, slicing bellies and all that shit, which is something we are going to have to talk about down the road … we’re not the Shankill Butchers.” Although there is little to analyse in regard to unionist representation, the Coen Brothers’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs does present a character, played by Liam Neeson, in one of the anthology film’s chapters set in the wild American west, called “Meal Ticket”, that a knowing audience can identify as unionist given his broad Ulster accent and his drunken singing of the loyalist song The Sash My Father Wore. Although these are subtle identifiers, his character, a travelling impresario in charge of an artist who has no arms or legs, also does little to rescue unionism’s abject reputation as it is implied in the chapter’s final macabre sequence that he discards the vulnerable artist in the river after discovering that a popular math-solving chicken may yield more profit. An emergent theme in films analysed in the previous chapter still remains, that of senior unionists appearing more compromising and moderate. Perhaps acknowledging the role senior unionist politicians and loyalist paramilitaries played in the peace process, an ageing Ian Paisley and the senior loyalist character in Maze can be understood to be a continuation of a theme started in the 1995 film, Nothing Personal, and continued in the 2013 film, Good Vibrations. In Maze, Henry’s conciliatory nature is juxtaposed with the rashness of the younger loyalist prisoners whereas, in The Journey, Paisley’s eventual softening is contrasted with the intransigent nature of his younger self. However, a contrasting of the older generation’s capacity for compromise with the younger generations’ violence and bigotry still requires a distinct abject portrayal of unionist characters to some extent.

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References Baker, Stephen. 2016. “Victory Doesn’t Always Look the Way Other People Imagine It” Post-conflict cinema in Northern Ireland. In: The Routledge Companion to Cinema and Politics. London: Routledge. Bennett, Ronan. 1998. Don’t Mention the War. In: Rethinking Northern Ireland. New York: Addison Wesley Longman Limited. Higson, Andrew. 2011. Film England: Culturally English Filmmaking since the 1990s. London: I.B. Tauris. Hill, John. 1999. British Cinema in the 1980s. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Matchett, Conor. 2020. Poll shows Scottish independence support surging to joint record levels as SNP set for majority. The Scotsman. Available: https:// www.scotsman.com/news/politics/poll-­s hows-­s cottish-­i ndependence-­ support-­surging-­joint-­record-­levels-­snp-­set-­majority-­3070791. Accessed 5 October 2022. Mac Donncha, Mícheál. 2017. The Great Escape from the H-Blocks. An Phoblacht archive. Accessed 5 October 2022 https://www.anphoblacht.com/ contents/23354. McClafferty, Enda. 2017. Assembly Election ‘a brutal result for unionism’. BBC.  Accessed 5 October 2022 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ uk-­northern-­ireland-­39166355. O’Neill, Julian. 2020. Long would give ‘careful consideration’ to Gerry Kelly’s Policing Board position. BBC.  Accessed 5 October 2022 https://www.bbc. co.uk/news/uk-­northern-­ireland-­54440773. Accessed 5 October 2022. RTÉ. 2017. Jim Sheridan’s H-Block escape film postponed. RTÉ. Accessed 5 October 2022 https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/2017/0807/895738­h-­block/. Rubin, Rebecca. 2020. Kenneth Branagh’s Drama ‘Belfast’ Lands at Focus Features. Accessed 5 October 2022 https://variety.com/2020/film/news/ kenneth-­branagh-­belfast-­focus-­features-­1234863903/. Shoard, Catherine. 2022. Kenneth Branagh salutes the ‘fabulous island of Ireland’ as he accepts Belfast Oscar. Irish Examiner. Accessed 5 October 2022 https:// www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/artsandculture/arid-­40838291.html.

CHAPTER 9

Conclusion

Although not as pronounced at times, a cinematic deficit concerning Northern Irish unionists being depicted less favourably and frequently than Irish nationalists has endured throughout the 40-year period analysed. An absence in terms of depictions being less favourable and less frequent is connected; for example, vastly more nationalist characters appear as central protagonists and, as storytelling conventions dictate, they are naturally presented with both a greater nuance and human dimension. Filmmakers have also largely ignored the many complications and contradictions within both the unionist identity and unionist perspectives of the Troubles. The largely abject portrayal in cinema has also resulted in identifiably Northern Irish unionist characters never being presented in anything like a similar manner to how British people are generally. It is as if filmmakers typically do not see Northern Irish unionists as being British in the same way as those in Great Britain. When looking for positive representations of Northern Irish unionists, you find that they are only catered for within the dominant British master narrative, over which unionists in Northern Ireland have little influence and are never depicted as being a part of. On occasion, the medium of film can also be seen as fundamentally conducive to an unfavourable portrayal of Northern Irish unionism; unlike literature and other mediums, a subtle linking of Northern Irish unionism with violence and sectarianism is achievable in cinema through the strategic use of cinematography and mise-en-scène, specifically, the placement © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Gallagher, Screening Ulster, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23436-1_9

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of unionist symbolism such as loyalist murals and Orange motifs. In Maeve, Cal and Nothing Personal, the Union flag is utilised in a similar manner. Its function in these films is also markedly different from how the Union flag typically functions in cinema to symbolise such ideals as freedom, collectiveness and inclusivity and as a result, it takes on a decidedly Northern Irish unionist form. At times, nationalist and republican symbolism is used in a similar manner reinforcing the fact that, in truth, the orthodoxy in cinema is a soft nationalist one rather than republican. One of the primary ways that unionists have been identified in this study is through expressions of cultural identity. Whereas engagement with cultural identity could take the form of associations with sport, British institutions or war commemoration, it has primarily been identified with associations to Orangeism (parades, loyalist bands and bonfires). This presents a narrow uncomplicated understanding of the unionist identity that, importantly, allows for it to be portrayed as constantly at odds with Irish nationalism and frames unionism in a manner that defines it primarily in relation to nationalism. Unionists are therefore rarely viewed for who they are, rather more for how they can illustrate certain characteristics of Irish nationalists. Appropriately, given that British people from mainland Britain generally do not have much appreciation for the Orange institution or its traditions, this also means that unionism is further presented as distinctive from general Britishness. Having often been accused of being a supremacist, sexist, intolerant and uncompromising organisation, associations with the Orange Order and its traditions are also naturally not conducive to a positive portrayal of unionists. In fact, the treatments the Orange Order and Orange traditions have received in cinema have ranged from being presented as hostile to being ridiculed. Orangeism and the reasons people are drawn to following such a tradition are never explored in any meaningful way. Another way unionists have been identified in this research is when they have been depicted as either unionist politicians or loyalist paramilitaries. An explicit engagement with politics in this way leaves no room for ambiguity concerning their political perspectives, and it is perhaps unsurprising that the most unfavourable depictions of unionists have been reserved for such characters. Surprisingly, depictions of unionist politicians have been extremely rare; nevertheless, in films such as Ascendancy, The Most Fertile Man in Ireland and The Journey, unionist politicians—like characters associated with the Orange Order—have been depicted as inherently intransigent and conservative.

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One of the most enduring patterns of representation identified has been unionists being principally presented as lonely figures, needing exposure to the conviviality of nationalist culture to achieve fulfilment. This type of representation is often accompanied by either actual or metaphorical depictions of unionist sterility. Unionists are rarely seen with family and a general lack of romantic attachments suggests the unlikelihood of future generations. If unionists have children, it is an only child as presented in such films as Mickybo and Me and Shooting for Socrates. Both The Most Fertile Man in Ireland and With or Without You even have the theme of unionist or Protestant men’s infertility central to the plot. Bearing in mind that Northern Ireland is a state that exists at the behest of unionism, the region’s generally cold and sterile appearance in cinema may also, on occasion, be the result of allegorical considerations. This can be seen as conforming to the stereotype that Protestants don’t have as many children as Catholics, so bluntly presented in a famous sketch in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (Terry Jones, 1983). However, it also reflects a Northern Irish unionist community and culture that is in decline and of the past. Within this cinematically marginalised community is another largely ignored subset. Reflecting the male-orientated world of ‘Troubles Cinema’ in general and perhaps partly owing to the fact that—unlike republican paramilitaries—loyalist paramilitaries didn’t allow female members, unionist women have featured rarely in the films analysed. Unionist women primarily function as an adjunct to narratives focused on male loyalist paramilitaries where they represent the private sphere of the home and where their femininity is used to mark a contrast between it and the public sphere of violence. Women function similarly in films involving prison officers’ families and their fear of the blurring of such private/public boundaries can, although their screen time is brief, be understood as some of the more emphatic expressions of unionist anxieties during the conflict. As for exceptions to traditions of representation, only December Bride, Resurrection Man and Silent Grace can be understood to include prominently female unionist characters that take on a more active, albeit sectarian, role. Loyalist paramilitaries have increasingly come to dominate cinematic depictions of unionists. In fact, over the last two decades, depictions of both non-violent or civic unionists and nationalists have become rare. There are several reasons for this; firstly, a focus on agents in the conflict is perhaps a reflection of how cinema has often become a site where the contentious nature of Northern Ireland’s violent past is addressed. With

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distance from the events, real-life stories of violence and paramilitary action can also be understood not to be as exploitative as they may once have been by audiences. The new market-focused dispensation, seemingly encouraged to varying degrees by evolving Film Four, Northern Ireland Screen and Screen Ireland organisations, can also be understood to have resulted in much more genre-derived films being produced and in ‘Troubles films’ becoming something of a genre synonymous with action and thriller films where naturally a focus will be on people engaging in violence of some kind. This also reflects the fundamental shift in cinema about Ireland away from the bold aesthetics and radical filmmaking of the 1980s towards a more commercial type of cinema. Portrayals of loyalist paramilitaries have been influenced significantly by the exploits of the Shankill Butchers. This has resulted in loyalist paramilitaries being principally depicted as monstrous and indiscriminate with their use of violence. Loyalist violence is also seldom presented as being politically motivated, and this can be seen to contrast significantly with depictions of republican violence. Only Nothing Personal, Five Minutes of Heaven and ‘71 afford those carrying out loyalist violence anything like the type of nuance and empathy typically afforded to those carrying out republican violence. However, the use of these characters as a vessel to better articulate typical unionist concerns and perspectives of the conflict can be understood to be possible only because of the characters’ young age and therefore diminished agency. Other examples of unionist characters being presented positively also generally come with similar constraints. What one might on first impression view as the most positive depiction of unionism, the whimsical Eleventh Night bonfire celebration in The Most Fertile Man in Ireland, is so full of inaccuracies and ironic detachment—at least to an audience that is in any way initiated—that it does little to rectify unionism’s abject reputation. It certainly cannot be said to do much to offer a representative and comprehensive depiction of unionism or Northern Ireland. The study shows that one explanation for the cinematic deficit is filmmakers’ interest in historical events which has manifested in both abject portrayals of unionists and disinterest in including unionists. These historic events include much-publicised demonstrations of intransigence by unionists and unionist political figures throughout the period of time studied, state collusion with loyalist paramilitaries and acts of violence carried out by the Shankill Butchers. Intransigence, intolerance and generally uncompromising behaviour have been a feature of almost all depictions of

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unionists in some manner with only several exceptions and occasions when characters can be seen to evolve into more conciliatory characters. The portrayal of collusion can be identified in such films to deal with loyalist paramilitaries as Angel, High Boot Benny, Nothing Personal, Some Mother’s Son and ‘71. The Shankill Butchers and their use of violence is perhaps the clearest example of historic events influencing portrayals. This can be identified most clearly in two films with narratives based on the real-life gang, Nothing Personal and Resurrection Man. Despite the actions of the gang being exceptional, their savagery can also be seen to have influenced depictions of unionists more generally. Very often, once this barbarism was established, there was little or no desire or incentive to engage with the politics or the perspectives of the unionist community in any meaningful way. Conversely, events such as the republican hunger strikes and Bloody Sunday have encouraged ‘commemorative filmmaking’, empathetic portrayals of nationalists and more comprehensive portrayals. In particular, the 1981 republican hunger strike in the Maze prison has influenced depictions of the Troubles throughout the period examined. Firstly, the event and the worldwide media attention it received is found to be a key motivation behind the more in-depth cinematic depictions of the Troubles that emerged in British cinema in the 1980s, an occurrence that coincided with the emergence of Northern Irish unionists first appearing regularly in cinema. Some of the films at this time, such as Ascendancy and Cal, can even be seen to comment—albeit metaphorically—on the hunger strike. In Hollywood productions, this more in-depth nuanced approach to the conflict after the hunger strike typically manifested a little later in troubled IRA men emerging as protagonists in films in the 1990s. In the 2000s, realistic and detailed docudrama treatments of events in both the Maze and Armagh prisons would also be released. Later, Maze also depicts events that happened in the aftermath of the hunger strike. Another reason for the cinematic deficit is the complexity of, and difficulty in presenting, both the unionist identity and unionist perspectives of the conflict. In comparison, the nationalist identity and perspective of the conflict are much more simple and easily identifiable. This reason for the cinematic deficit was once confused for the dominance of Hollywood productions buying into what Tom Nairn describes as the ‘anti-imperialist myth’ and appealing to an Irish nationalist sympathising American audience. However, the perseverance of the cinematic deficit in the two decades since Hollywood stopped making films about the Troubles implies

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that the less complex identity and narrative of nationalists is a better explanation for a focus on Irish nationalist characters and themes. Certainly, it can be understood, given the conventions of the thriller format that nationalism is better suited. For this matter, the less risk-averse nature of television and the longer amount of time generally afforded to television productions means that perhaps it might be a better medium for depicting more nuanced unionist characters and, particularly, the more complicated unionist identity. Some recent television dramas, such as The Fall and Bloodlands, have unfortunately tended to mould Northern Ireland to fit conventional thriller narratives rather than adopt narratives that explore, rather than ignore, complexity. However, earlier television films, such as The Billy Trilogy and As the Beast Sleeps (Bradbeer, 2002) and television dramas, such as Eureka Street, have provided a much more nuanced and authentic depiction of unionists. A line of dialogue delivered by an Irish Protestant character in another earlier television film, Naming the Names (Burge, 1987), provides a clear articulation of the unionist perspective unlike anything identified in productions intended for release in cinemas. Defending unionist opposition to Home Rule, the character asserts, “The Protestant opposition to home rule was rational. Because at the time Ulster Protestant industries, linen, shipbuilding, were dependent on the British market. Home rule would have ruined Ulster financially.” Stephen Baker also claims that television has provided exceptions to the rule that sees screen depictions of Northern Ireland dominated by the ethics of the free market and conceived as an adjunct to tourism. He posits that this is due to British television having what he describes as a “residual commitment to public service broadcasting” (Baker 2016: 181). Indeed, this theory is also supported by some of the content of this research, and this presents one possible avenue for future research. The lack of unionists making films and the proliferation of Irish nationalist or republican-identifying filmmakers making films about the conflict can also be understood as being a reason for the cinematic deficit. This reflects a wider belief that unionists do not tell stories or articulate perspectives about the conflict with anything like the confidence and regularity of nationalists. This phenomenon is perhaps owing to the peculiar nature of the Northern Irish state, set up specifically for a Protestant, unionist community who therefore never felt the compulsion to convince through storytelling in the manner of subjugated and restrained Irish nationalists. Despite decades having passed since the worst of the

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suppression of nationalists, the community’s tendency to tell stories about the conflict and generally express itself through the arts has shown itself to be deeply rooted. It can also be understood that, as a result of this context, unionist filmmakers may be inclined to believe that stories about this time are not theirs to tell. With this study, rather than attempt to provide solutions, I suggest that the research has proven that ameliorating the inadequacies in cinematic representations of unionists and Northern Ireland will be a very difficult thing to do given many of the inherent and systemic causes of the cinematic deficit. However, if pressed, I would argue that evidence suggests Northern Ireland having more autonomy over depictions and a less genre-­ driven and market-focused approach to filmmaking would be conducive to more nuanced and authentic depictions of unionists. Certainly, this study finds that the cinematic deficit has a lot less to do with a nefarious Hollywood or, for that matter, Dublin bias towards Irish nationalism than has been thought. Even the claim that bias is involved is problematic as it suggests a conscious prejudice. This also suggests a more localised solution is necessary and that perhaps unionism must look inward to counter depictions of itself. A question that should be asked of unionism is why the community is not involved in filmmaking, or in other avenues to convey unionist perspectives. Also, why is unionism so unpalatable and unintelligible to others? After all, unionism is not a historically oppressed minority, the kind who often finds itself ‘Othered’ on screen. Unionism had a state built in its image and opportunity to address such issues. It had a subvention from Britain and control over regional broadcasters and cultural policy. This is true to such an extent that one could certainly argue that it is its own shortcomings—rather than anything or anyone else—that is to blame. Importantly, addressing the issue should not mean that unionism can cast off its more unsavoury elements. Any undertaking must be done with a focus on conveying nuance and complexity rather than presenting a sanitised view of unionism and ignoring regressive elements. Although some might point to historic events precious to unionists as subject matter to use in producing stories such as the Siege of Derry or, as some have suggested, the Larne Gunrunning, I would argue that stories that fit neatly into unionism’s grand or meta-narrative are unlikely to find a wide audience. Instead, a focus on the everyday and on narratives that intersect in some way with the contemporary zeitgeist would be better suited. Examples of these are stories about the transformative elements within

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loyalist paramilitaries in the run-up to the peace process or stories that explore themes of identity and belonging, such as working-class unionists’ attempts to preserve unionist culture. However, tellingly, this is a subject matter that is unlikely to compliment the genre-driven and market-focused filmmaking environment that currently exists. A less market-focused approach by producers and policymakers is not likely any time soon, and this underscores the many obstacles unionism or others face if it does wish to rectify the community’s representation on screen. Furthermore, the research suggests that there is more than simply a lack of understanding or interest in unionism by the film industry; it suggests a lack of acceptance, even within mainstream Britain, that Northern Irish unionists are unconditionally British. The inaccuracy of a 1981 statement by Margaret Thatcher that “Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom; as much as my constituency is” (often paraphrased and quoted as “Northern Ireland is as British as Finchley”) could not be clearer when looking at depictions of Northern Ireland in cinema. Rather, to quote a famous documentary, Northern Ireland really does look like it is on the edge of the union.1

Reference Baker, Stephen. 2016. ‘Victory Doesn’t Always Look the Way Other People Imagine It’ Post-conflict Cinema in Northern Ireland. In The Routledge Companion to Cinema and Politics. London: Routledge.

1  Real Lives: At the Edge of the Union (Hamann, 1986) was a 1986 BBC documentary about Northern Ireland that was controversially censored by the government.

Index1

A A Belfast Story, 140, 141, 170 Adair, Johnny, 17, 109, 141, 147, 148 Adams, Gerry, 157 Amendola, Linda, 90 An Everlasting Piece, 63, 101, 102, 112–116 Angel, 21, 28–33, 48, 90–92, 181 Angelis, Michael, 47 Anglo-Irish Agreement, 57, 74, 153 Appleton, Dudi, 107 Apprentice Boys of Derry, 111 A Prayer for the Dying, 54 A Quiet Day in Belfast, 17, 108, 170 Armagh, 2 Armagh prison, 22, 121, 124, 181 The Armagh Women, 124 Armstrong, Alun, 104 Arts Council of Northern Ireland, 103 Ascendancy, 21, 33–40, 49, 64, 178, 181 As the Beast Sleeps, 70, 88, 121, 182

B Bad Day for the Cut, 157, 174 Baker, Stephen, 4, 5, 11, 13, 17, 23, 24, 32, 60, 68, 71, 74, 84, 88, 102, 158, 158n1, 159, 182 Balfe, Caitríona, 171 The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, 158, 174 The Ballroom of Romance, 41 Barros D’Sa, Lisa, 136, 146, 147, 155 Barton, Ruth, 3, 30, 35, 61 Bateman, Colin, 105, 106, 161 The Battle of Algiers, 71 Battle of the Boyne 1690, 82, 110, 164, 165 Battle of the Somme, 34, 38, 150, 155 Bazin, Cécile, 85 BBC, 12n3, 21, 24, 25, 105, 121, 131, 142, 157, 184n1 BBC Northern Ireland, 12n3, 102, 103 Beattie, Ian, 141

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 R. Gallagher, Screening Ulster, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23436-1

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INDEX

Belfast, 5, 9, 11, 14, 17, 18, 21–23, 25–27, 37, 56, 58, 68–70, 76, 81, 83, 90, 91, 105–107, 112, 113, 116, 124, 137, 139, 142, 145, 146, 149, 153, 154, 162, 171 East Belfast, 152 North Belfast, 170 South Belfast, 137 West Belfast, 62, 68, 90 Belfast (2022), 157, 160, 170, 171, 173 Belfast Pogrom, 37, 37n4 Bell, Sam Hanna, 59 Bennett, Edward, 33 Bennett, Ronan, 11, 170 Berry, Anthony, 57 The Billy Trilogy, 21, 182 Black and Tans, 39, 56, 119, 123 Black, Mary, 110 Blackish, 73n2 Blair, Les, 119, 124 Blair, Tony, 75, 162 Bleasdale, Alan, 45 Bloodlands, 157, 182 Bloody Friday, 142, 143 Bloody Sunday, 122, 181 Bloody Sunday (2002), 120, 122 Blown Away, 9, 54 Bonfire, 82, 110, 111, 126, 180 Boogaloo and Graham, 136 Boorman, John, 28, 71, 92–95 The Boxer, 69, 91, 166n2 Boyle, Danny, 158, 164, 165 The Boys From the Blackstuff, 45 Bradbeer, Harry, 121 Branagh, Kenneth, 11, 12, 157, 170, 173 Breakfast on Pluto, 122 British Army, 22, 30, 44, 72, 73, 83, 90, 97, 112, 114, 122, 146, 150, 151, 155, 173

British Board of Film Classification, 18 British Film Institute, 18, 22, 33, 49, 149 British Screen, 69 Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, 166 Brosnan, Pierce, 50 Brown, Terence, 11 Bruce, Brenda, 59 Burke, Gregory, 149 Burke, Stephen, 45, 120, 157, 166, 166n2, 168, 169, 173, 174 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 139 C Caffrey, David, 31, 101, 105, 131, 147 Cagney, James, 87 Cahill, Martin, 68, 92–95 Cal, 21, 40, 41, 43, 44, 50, 56, 115, 144, 171, 178, 181 Campbell, Aidan, 125 Campbell, Brian, 124 Campbell, David, 153 Campbell, Mark, 9, 173 Captain Boycott, 85 Carberry, Colin, 146 Carlsten, Jennie, 120, 129, 130 Carmella, 38 Carson, Edward, 12, 33, 36, 37 Casting, 50, 80, 83, 95, 97, 126, 131 Cavan, 37 Ceasefire, 62, 67, 74, 75, 78, 102, 121 Ceasefire Cinema, 91 Channel 4, 29, 69, 73n2, 75, 141, 152, 159 Charleson, Ian, 34 Churchill, Randolph, 27 Churchill, Winston, 57 Cinematography, 26, 42, 50, 177

 INDEX 

Civil Authorities Act 1922, 18 Clarke, Kathy Kiera, 108 Coen Brothers, 158, 174 Collusion, 7, 16, 31–33, 90–92, 97, 116, 145, 152, 155, 168, 180 Columbia Pictures, 56 Comerford, Joe, 23, 89 Commemorative filmmaking, 120, 122 Connelly, Mark, 8, 72, 73, 123 Connolly, Billy, 113 Conroy, Rúaidhrí, 79, 136 Coogan, Tim Pat, 57n1 Cooper, Robert, 107 Counterpoint, 70 Covington, Julie, 34 Crawford, Colin, 62 Creative Scotland, 149 Cruise O’Brien, Conor, 16 The Crying Game, 29, 54, 55 Cunningham, Liam, 130 Cycle of Violence, 105 Cyprus Avenue, 157 D Daily Ireland, 56 Daily Mail, 71, 123n2 Dance Lexie Dance, 104, 131, 150 The Dawning, 33 Day-Lewis, Daniel, 91 December Bride, 53–65, 95, 121, 179 Demange, Yann, 79, 135, 149, 151 Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), 14, 25, 58, 74, 121, 140, 161 Derry, 73, 122 Derry Girls, 157 The Devil’s Own, 44, 71, 72, 72n1, 84, 85 Dillon, Martin, 69 Divorcing Jack, 101, 102, 105–108, 116, 131, 141, 147, 161

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Donegal, 37, 153 Donegall Road, 21 Dormer, Richard, 146, 152 Dornan, Jamie, 171 Dourif, Brad, 56 Down, 59 Downing Street Declaration, 74 Doyle Kennedy, Maria, 80 Doyle, Mary, 124 Dracula, 86 Dracula Untold, 158 DreamWorks, 112, 116 Drumcree, 75, 111 Dr. Zhivago, 110 Dublin, 9, 30, 58, 59, 63, 92, 93, 95, 166, 169, 183 Dunbar, Adrian, 92, 137, 147–149 Dunbar, Stefan, 167 Dunkirk, 4 E Eccleston, Christopher, 104 Eleventh Night, 82, 110, 111, 116, 126, 180 Elliott, Marianne, 122 Ellis, James, 45 Empire, 2, 5, 7, 15 Enter the Dragon, 163 Erskine, James, 152 Ervine, David, 143 Eureka Street, 182 European Union, 103, 160, 163 Evans, Marc, 68, 82, 126 Evening Standard, 27, 69 The Exorcist, 163 F The Fall, 157, 182 Far and Away, 61 Farley, Fidelma, 78–80, 84, 85

188 

INDEX

Farrell, Mairéad, 124 Far-right, 83, 106, 147–149 Fassbender, Michael, 50, 129, 131 Fast Forward, 55 Festival of Britain, 12 Field Day, 10, 11 Fifty Dead Men Walking, 122, 141 Film Four, 21, 29, 33, 44, 46, 49, 54, 59, 103, 127, 149, 159, 164, 180 Film noir, 76, 93 Finance Act 1987, 55 Five Minutes of Heaven, 79, 135, 142–146, 150, 155, 180 Flag Protests, 140 Fools of Fortune, 33, 35n3 Ford, Harrison, 72 Ford, John, 57n1, 60 The Foreigner, 9, 157, 173 Four Days in July, 21, 104, 131 The Foyle Film Festival, 10 Frain, James, 76 The Frankenstein Chronicles, 158–159 Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, 25 Fricker, Brenda, 84 Friel, Anna, 113 Fullerton, Jackie, 153 The Full Monty, 102 G Gallagher, Bronagh, 107 Galway, 12, 60 Gambon, Michael, 77 Game of Thrones, 158, 158n1 Gant, Richard, 106 Garda Síochána, 92 The General, 71, 92–95, 173 The Gentle Gunman, 85 George, Terry, 71, 91, 120 Gere, Richard, 50, 73 Ging, Debbie, 101, 121, 128 Give My Head Peace, 102, 131

Glasgow, 164 Gleeson, Brendan, 92 God Save the Queen, 115, 153 Good Friday Agreement, 45, 56, 70, 75, 101–103, 116, 121, 145 Good Vibrations, 136, 146–149, 155, 169, 174 Gotti, John, 95 Government of Ireland Act, 2 Graham, Stuart, 128 The Grasscutter, 84n4 Greengrass, Paul, 120, 122 Griffin, Jim, 142, 144, 146 Grisham, John, 163 Guardian, 121n1 H H3, 119–133 Hamm, Nick, 161 Hannah, John, 86 Harland and Wolff, 154 Harlow, Jean, 88 Harris, Richard, 63 Hart, Ian, 76 Hassan, Mamoun, 45 HBO, 5, 158n1 Heaney, Seamus, 10, 11 Heffernan, Honor, 32 Hemdale Film Corporation, 56 Henri, 104 Heritage films, 35 Hibbert, Guy, 142 Higgins, Michael D., 55 High Boot Benny, 89, 181 Highmore, Freddie, 164 Higson, Andrew, 159 Hill, Conleth, 153 Hill, John, 3, 6, 8, 18, 29, 30, 33, 40, 67, 69, 72n1, 76, 78, 83, 86, 88, 102–110, 114, 115, 122 Hill, Jude, 170

 INDEX 

189

Hinds, Ciarán, 59, 138 Hirschbiegel, Oliver, 79, 135, 142, 145, 151 Hitchcock, Alfred, 84 Hogg, B.J., 105, 131 The Hole in the Wall Gang, 102 Holland, Jack, 22 Hollywood, 7–9, 15, 18, 50, 54, 55, 57n1, 60, 61, 65, 71, 73, 94, 95, 112, 117, 123, 143, 158, 173, 181, 183 Home Rule, 27, 33, 36, 37, 182 Hooley, Terri, 146, 148 Howard, Ron, 61 Hunger, 119–121, 127, 128, 132, 168 Hunger strike, 21, 22, 34, 40, 41, 49, 54, 71, 91, 120–122, 124, 127n3, 128–130, 132, 140, 167, 181 Hurst, Brian Desmond, 18 Hurt, John, 162

J The Jackal, 71, 73 Jackson, Mary, 23, 50 Jackson, Samuel L., 163 Jacqueline, 17 Johnston, Trevor, 45 Jordan, Neill, 23, 28, 30, 48, 71, 90, 92 The Journey, 157, 160, 174, 178

I Ima Films, 105 In America, 123 Independent Film, Video and Photography Association, 55 In the Name of the Father, 54, 166n2 IRA, 9, 15, 17, 29–32, 41, 43, 44, 50, 54, 57n1, 71–76, 78, 83, 90–96, 106, 112, 113, 122, 123, 126, 141, 142, 151, 167, 181 leadership, 43, 57, 63 Official IRA, 152 Provisional IRA, 16, 57, 69, 72–74, 78, 124, 149, 152, 160, 166, 167, 173 Iraq War, 9, 56, 117, 123 Ireland, David, 157 Irish War of Independence, 18, 56 I See a Dark Stranger, 108

L Lambeg drum, 11, 61, 111 Larne Gunrunning, 183 Lawrenson, Edward, 108 Leather, Stephen, 9 Lee Miller, Jonny, 164 LeFanu, Sheridan, 38 Leigh, Mike, 21 Levinson, Barry, 63, 101, 112, 113 Lewis, C.S., 154 Leyburn, Glenn, 136, 146, 147, 155 Liebmann, Michael, 83, 126 Lindsay, Robert, 105 Line of Duty, 158 Little, Alistair, 142, 143 Loach, Ken, 44, 55–57, 57n1, 63, 120, 123, 123n2 Loane, Terry, 137, 150 Loane, Tim, 150

K Kane, Alex, 2 Kavanagh, John, 44 Kelly, Gerry, 166 Kerr, Frank, 90 Killeen, Jarlath, 34n2 King, Tom, 58 Kirkland, Richard, 135, 142, 145, 150 Kirwan, Dervla, 59, 104

190 

INDEX

The Long Good Friday, 50 Longley, Edna, 13 Loyalist band, 11, 35, 89, 110, 111, 126, 178 Luraschi, Tony, 90n5 Lydon, Gary, 78 Lynch, John, 41, 50, 76 Lynch, Robert, 37n4 Lynch, Susan, 174 M MacLaverty, Bernard, 41, 44 Mad about Mambo, 101 Maeve, 21–28, 33, 41, 50, 81, 115, 124, 178 The Magnificent Seven, 105 Major, John, 74 Malahide, Patrick, 61 Mark Mulholland, 25 Marley, Larry, 167 Marsh, James, 140 Marshall, Kris, 108 Mayo, 60 Maze, 120, 157, 160, 166–169, 173, 174, 181 Maze prison, 22, 34, 40, 41, 54, 91, 121, 124, 140, 166, 169, 174, 181 McAleer, Des, 113 McAnally, Ray, 33, 42, 45, 50, 171 McAuley, James, 6, 17 McBlain, David, 90 McCafferty, Nell, 124 McCafferty, Owen, 137 McCann, Donal, 32, 41, 59 McCartney, Gerard, 83 McConnell, Jack, 149 McCrory, Sam, 147 McDade, Ross, 62 McDormand, Frances, 56 McElhinney, Ian, 32

McElhone, Natasha, 50 McEvoy, Barry, 112 McGinley, Seán, 87, 93 McGowan, Rose, 50 McGrady, Niamh, 168 McGregor, Ewan, 164 McGuckian, Mary, 53, 62, 65 McGuinness, Martin, 161–164 McIlroy, Brian, 3, 7, 10, 28, 30, 39, 43, 44, 70, 76, 105, 107, 119, 132 McIntosh, Gillian, 7, 12, 18, 38n5 McKee, Gina, 138 McKeown, Laurence, 124 McKinley, Corey, 150 McKittrick, David, 13–15, 34, 73 McLaughlin, Cahal, 6 McLoone, Martin, 5, 14, 23, 25, 43, 48, 60, 85, 127, 128, 141 McNamee, Eoin, 69, 87 McNeill, John Joe, 137 McQueen, Steve, 119, 127, 128, 130, 132, 168, 170 McSorely, Gerard, 31, 91 Meaney, Colm, 141, 162 Miami Showband, 30, 33 Michael Collins, 44, 71 Mickybo and Me, 63, 137, 138, 150, 172, 179 The Mighty Celt, 122, 136 Military Reaction Force, 151, 152 Mirallegro, Nico, 153 Mirren, Helen, 41, 50, 91 Mise-en-scene, 26, 42, 50, 86, 91, 106, 145, 154, 177 Mitchell, Gary, 3, 9, 10, 70, 86, 121, 121n1, 122 Mo, 141 Molloy, Dearbhla, 63 Monaghan, 37 Monarchy, 1, 4, 7, 94 coronation, 12, 17

 INDEX 

Queen Elizabeth II, 12, 93, 94, 112, 115 royal ceremony, 42 Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, 179 Mornin, Daniel, 69, 77, 78 Morton, Samantha, 62 The Most Fertile Man in Ireland, 64, 101, 102, 107–112, 116, 126, 178–180 Mowlam, Mo, 141 Mulholland, Mark, 45, 50 Mulvenna, Gareth, 144n1, 147, 148 Murphy, Colm, 106 Murphy, Lenny, 16, 69, 77, 78, 82, 83 Murphy, Maeve, 119, 124 Murphy, Pat, 22 My Left Foot, 55 N Nairn, Tom, 7, 181 Naming the Names, 182 Nandy, Ashis, 34 National Film Finance Council, 44–46, 49, 54 Nazi, 83, 97, 148 Neeson, Liam, 142, 174 Nesbitt, James (Jimmy), 84, 87, 108, 145 Newby, Lucy, 81, 136, 149 New Irish Cinema, 21, 23, 27, 29, 49, 62, 89 NI Film and Television Commission, 107, 124 Northern Ireland Arts Council, 55 Northern Ireland Film Council, 55, 103, 137 Northern Ireland flag, 81, 110 Northern Ireland football team, 152, 155

191

Northern Ireland Screen, 11, 103, 127, 142, 146, 152, 158, 158n1, 161, 170, 180 No Surrender, 21, 44, 45, 48, 49, 53, 57, 104 Nothing Personal, 68, 69, 71, 75–83, 83n3, 86, 88, 91, 95–97, 106, 109, 131, 135, 136, 144, 151, 174, 178, 180, 181 Novosel, Tony, 16 Nugent, Mairéad, 124 O O’Brien, Harvey, 23 O’Byrne, Brian, 113 O’Callaghan, Liam, 36 O’Casey, Seán, 9 O’Connell, Dióg, 111 O’Connor, Pat, 35n3, 40, 49 Odd Man Out, 18, 29, 76 Omagh Bomb, 121 O’Neill, Tara Lynne, 79 O’Neill, Tipp, 58 Orange Order, 2, 11, 12, 23, 33, 35, 36, 39, 41, 42, 47, 48, 50, 56, 60, 61, 65, 75, 95, 104, 111, 119, 124, 147, 165, 168, 169, 178 O’Rawe, Geraldine, 84 Ordinary Decent Criminal, 92–96 O’Shea, Marc, 63, 90, 141 O’Sullivan, Thaddeus, 53, 59–61, 65, 68, 70, 71, 76, 80, 83, 94–97, 136 O’Toole, Fintan, 127n3 Ourselves Alone, 18, 108 The Outsider, 90n5 P Paisley, Ian, 25, 58, 74, 113, 140, 153, 161–164, 171, 174 Parity of esteem, 75

192 

INDEX

Parkinson, Art, 152 Pasternak, Boris, 110 Pathé, 142 Patriot Games, 9, 54 Patriots, 90, 93 Patterson, Glenn, 146 Peace process, 67, 78, 91, 96, 121, 139, 141, 142, 145, 161, 174, 184 Peace wall, 114 Peaky Blinders, 157 Pembridge Pictures, 62 Penance, 157 Perkins Gilman, Charlotte, 38 Pettitt, Lance, 23, 54, 91, 103 Phillips, John, 35 Pitt, Brad, 50, 72, 83 Plymouth Brethren, 62–65 Poitier, Sidney, 73 Police Service Northern Ireland, 139, 140 Pontecorvo, Gillo, 71 Pope, 82, 106, 112, 163 Prison officer, 120, 124–133, 166–169, 179 Prison orderly, 130–132 Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), 70 Psycho, 84 The Public Enemy, 87, 88 Pulp Fiction, 71 Puttnam, David, 40, 56 Q The Quiet Man, 60 Quilligan, Veronica, 31 Quinn, Bob, 23 R Radió Teilifis Éireann (RTÉ), 22, 124, 152, 166 Rambo Revisited, 45

Rangers football club, 164 Real Lives: At the Edge of the Union, 184n1 Rea, Stephen, 11, 14, 31 Red Hand Commando, 74 Reed, Carol, 18, 29, 76 Reeves, Saskia, 59 Referendum, 63, 70, 75, 108, 160, 161 Regan, Ronald, 58 Reid, Graham, 21 Reservoir Dogs, 71 Resurrection Man, 68–71, 82–89, 91, 96, 97, 103, 109, 110, 113, 126, 131, 135, 173, 179, 181 Revolution Films, 82 Rimkus, Stevan, 43 Robinson, Peter, 140 Rockett, Emer, 69 Roddy, Lalor, 130, 169 Rohr, Tony, 31 Rompering, 87 Roulston, Fearghus, 81, 136, 149 Rourke, Mickey, 50 Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), 39, 43, 57, 75, 119 Royal Ulster Rifles, 150 Ryan’s Daughter, 108 Ryder, Mark, 142 S Sands, Bobby, 22, 125, 126, 128 The Sash My Father Wore, 24, 125, 126, 174 Savage, Robert, 12n3 Save Ulster from Sodomy, 163 Scarlatta, Jessica, 27 Scottish independence, 160, 161 Scottish Nationalist Party, 160, 161 Screen Ireland, 10, 21, 29, 49, 54, 55, 67, 69, 70, 108, 124, 137, 142, 146, 166, 180

 INDEX 

Screen Yorkshire, 149 ’71, 79, 135, 149–152, 155, 180, 181 Shadow Dancer, 140 Shane, George, 25, 26, 81, 85, 115 The Shankill Butchers, 16, 68, 69, 77, 82, 86, 87, 90, 93, 96, 97, 126, 174, 180, 181 Shankill Road, 72, 73, 150 Sheridan, Jim, 91, 123, 166n2, 174 Shirlow, Peter, 16 Shooting for Socrates, 136, 152–155, 179 Shoot to kill policy, 56 Siege of Derry, 45, 183 Silent Grace, 119–133, 179 Silent Witness, 157 Sinn Féin, 56, 70, 74, 75, 121, 140, 160, 161, 166 Smith, Peter, 45, 53 Socrates, 154 Some Mother’s Son, 44, 69, 71, 91, 120, 128, 181 Spacey, Kevin, 95 Spall, Timothy, 161 Spielberg, Steven, 113, 116 Stalker inquiry, 57 St. Andrew’s Agreement, 161 Star Wars, 15, 45 Stephens, Toby, 162 Stewart, Maclean, 109 The Sting, 163 Stoker, Bram, 86 Stone, Michael, 17, 141 Storey, Bobby, 166 Stuart, Ian, 147 Sunday, 122 T Tarantino, Quentin, 71 Tartan Gangs, 142, 144, 144n1 Tebbit, Norman, 57

193

Thatcher, Margaret, 22, 57, 58, 125, 129, 130, 184 Thewlis, David, 105 Third Cinema, 4, 4n1, 5 This is the Sea, 53–65 This Time with Alan Partridge, 157 Todd, Nathan, 141 Tookey, Christopher, 70 Too Late To Talk To Billy, 21 Townsend, Stuart, 83, 84 Trainspotting, 102, 164 Trevor, William, 41 Troubles comedy, 45, 101, 105, 108, 116, 159 The Truth Commissioner, 157 T2: Trainspotting, 158, 160, 164 Twelfth, 24, 41, 56, 59–61, 168, 169 Two Ceasefires and a Wedding, 102 U UK Film Council, 159 Ulster Defence Association, 62, 73, 74, 90, 92, 109, 121, 121n1, 131, 140, 147 Ulster Defence Regiment, 30, 39, 119 Ulster Democratic Party, 70 Ulster-Scot, 2, 60 Ulster Television, 59, 70 Ulster Unionist Party, 22, 37, 58 Ulster Volunteer Force, 30, 31, 42, 68, 74, 92–94, 105–107, 121, 121n1, 140, 142–144, 146 Ulster Volunteers, 40 Union flag, 26, 35, 42, 64, 81, 115, 128, 139, 178 Unionist women, 28, 79, 80, 179 United Ireland, 3, 46, 91, 108, 141, 161 V Vaughn-Lawlor, Tom, 167 Vicious Circle, 94

194 

INDEX

W Walker, Alexander, 27, 39, 45, 69, 70 Walters, Julie, 138 Ward, Barry, 120, 168 Watson, Emily, 91 Wayne, John, 60 Weber, Max, 10 Welsh, Irvine, 164 West Belfast Film Festival, 10 Wild About Harry, 101, 105 Wildfire, 157 Williamite War, 45 William of Orange, 42, 80–82, 110, 115, 164 Williams, Paul, 95 Williams, Richard, 11 Willis, Bruce, 73

Wilson, Harold, 172 The Wind That Shakes the Barley, 44, 56, 57, 120, 122, 123 Winterbottom, Michael, 82, 103 With or Without You, 63, 103, 179 Witness to the Mob, 95 Working Title Films, 137 Wright, Niall, 137 Y Yeats, W. B., 9 The Yellow Wallpaper, 38 Your Highness, 159 Z Zulu, 4