On the edge: the Irish in Britain as a troubled and troubling presence in the work of Jimmy McGovern and Alan Bleasdale

Abstract

Irish-born characters and characters whose names indicate Irish descent recur in the television and film work of Liverpool writers Jimmy McGovern and Alan Bleasdale. Their frequently troublesome dramatic presence often marks them as alien or marginal but problematic elements within British society, or suggests a troubled past and characteristic psychic dysfunction. Bleasdale's have been depicted somewhat stereotypically as economically parasitic and anachronistically maintaining outmoded religious beliefs incompatible with the material interests of the working class. By contrast, McGovern has frequently used his ‘Irish’ characters to engage critically with his own ‘Liverpool Irish’ Catholicism and as the focal point for his distinctively moral vision of British society.

Keywords:

• Jimmy McGovern
• Alan Bleasdale
• Irish in Britain
• television drama

Notes

 1. Belchem, Irish, Catholic and Scouse, 1.

 2. Belchem, Irish, Catholic and Scouse, 1, 8.

 3. Belchem, Irish, Catholic and Scouse, 1, 10.

 4. Belchem, Merseypride, xxxiii. O'Mara's Autobiography of a Liverpool Irish Slummy exemplifies this association.

 5. Brown, Dropping Anchor, Setting Sail, 215; see also Boyce, ‘From Victorian “Little Ireland” to Heritage Trail’.

 6. Rees-Jones, ‘Finding a Rhyme for Alphabet Soup’, 139.

 7. Quoted in Penelope Dening, ‘Liverpool, Ireland’, Irish Times, 9 December 1995, A.1.

 8. Day-Lewis, Talk of Drama, 41.

 9. Hallam, ‘We Are a City That Just Likes to Talk’, 193.

10. Belchem, Merseypride, 129.

11. Bleasdale, Boys from the Blackstuff.

12. ‘The South Bank Show’, 13 January 1985. Special feature on Scully: The Complete Series DVD (Network, 2006).

13. Bleasdale, Boys from the Blackstuff, 168.

14. Bleasdale, Boys from the Blackstuff, 218.

15. Bleasdale's commentary on ‘The Blackstuff’ DVD – included in the Boys from the Blackstuff DVD boxset, BBC Worldwide Publications, 2003.

16. The song was broadcast on the BBC's ‘Radio Ballad, Song of a Road’, 5 November 1959. See Seeger, Essential Ewan McColl Songbook, 128–9.

17. Millington and Nelson, ‘Boys from the Blackstuff’, 64.

18. Belchem, Irish, Catholic and Scouse, 40.

19. Millington and Nelson, ‘Boys from the Blackstuff’, 99.

20. The Tubridy Show .

21. Interview with author, Liverpool, 16 August 2009.

22. The Tubridy Show.

23. Anon., ‘Jimmy McGovern’ (interview), http://www.liverpoolcultureblog.co.uk/blackandwhite/index.php

24. Day-Lewis, Talk of Drama, 61.

25. Interview with author, Liverpool, 16 August 2009.

26. Interview with author, Liverpool, 16 August 2009

27. Interview with author, Liverpool, 16 August 2009

28. Interview with author, Liverpool, 16 August 2009

29. Interview with author, Liverpool, 16 August 2009

30. Duguid, Cracker, 36.

31. Crace, Cracker, 12–13.

32. Gorman, ‘A Scouse in Belfast’, 8.

33. Creeber, ‘Old Sleuth or New Man?’, 181.

34. Clarke, ‘The Skinheads & the Magical Recovery of Community’.

35. Smith, ‘“I've Got a Theory about Scousers”’, 225.

36. Sereny, Cries Unheard; Interview with author, Liverpool, 16 August 2009.

37. Rustin, The Good Society and the Inner World.