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ABSTRACT
This essay seeks to understand how since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, marking the end of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, filmic depictions of the conflict reinterpret and interrogate the traditional role of the ‘hero’ in the Irish republican cause. In an analysis of two films released after the Good Friday Agreement, Hunger (2008) and The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006), this essay argues that both films feature a hero-type Irish republican waging a brave-but-futile campaign against British oppression, but critique the myth of the Irish republican hero by severing the cycle of mythical violence by sowing doubt in the hero myth that serves as its base. This essay suggests that film is a low-stakes arena for the interrogation of volatile narratives that plays an important role in the reconceptualization of a conflict and, maybe even, its resolution.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Dr. Christine Fair for your support, guidance, and inspiration. An additional thanks to Steve and Eileen Schiffer, David Kelly, and RR.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Peterson, Martyrdom.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., 15.
5. Fierke, Political Self-Sacrifice.
6. Ibid., 37.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid., 38
10. Renan and Giglioli, ‘What is a Nation?’, 261.
11. Sweeney, ‘Irish Hunger Strikers’.
12. Larkin, ‘The Devotional Revolution’.
13. Sweeney, ‘Irish Hunger Strikers,’ 423.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. Dudley Edwards, Patrick Pearse, 326–327.
18. Ibid., 327
19. Benjamin and Arendt, Illuminations.
20. Hopkins, ‘Chronicles of Long Kesh,’ 3.
21. Hopkins, ‘Chronicles of Long Kesh’.
22. O’Rawe, Blanketmen.
23. McGlinchey, Unfinished Business, 15.
24. Altman, ‘A Semantic/Syntactic Approach,’ 10.
25. Ibid., 10.
26. Corrigan, A Short Guide.
27. Snow and Benford, ‘Master Frames,’ 137.
28. Gabriel, ‘Third Cinema’.
29. Stam, ‘Beyond Third Cinema’.
30. Polletta, Like a Fever.
31. Rumpf and Hepburn, Nationalism and Socialism.
32. In Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell describes his experience fighting with the POUM, lamenting their repression by Stalinist forces
33. Ibid., 38.
34. Kautt, The Anglo-Irish War.
35. Ibid.
36. Kautt, Ground Truths.
37. Townshend, British Campaign in Ireland.
38. See above 36.
39. See above 37.
40. McKenna, Guerrilla Warfare, 121.
41. Ibid., 121
42. McKenna, Guerrilla Warfare.
43. Ibid.
44. See above 31.
45. Bew, Frampton, and Gurruchaga, Talking to Terrorists.
46. Leaghy, The Intelligence War.
47. McIntyre, Good Friday, 34.
48. McKittrick, Lost Lives.
49. Edwards, ‘Misapplying Lessons Learned?’
50. Burke, ‘Counter-Insurgency’.
51. Ibid., 660
52. Ibid.
53. Ibid.
54. Dixon, British Approach to Counterinsurgency.
55. Sanders, ‘Operation Motorman’.
56. See above 50.
57. Ibid.
58. See above 54.
59. See above 45.
60. See above 54.
61. Some scholars dispute the notion that negotiations and military restraint emboldened the IRA. Bew, Frampton and Gurruchaga, for instance, maintain that a willingness to negotiate with the IRA is responsible for the ostensible resolution of the conflict in 1998.
62. Burke, ‘Counter-Insurgency’, 658.
63. See above 54.
64. Campbell, Thousand Faces.
65. Connolly, Selected Writings, 124 (my italics).
66. Fay, Morrissey, and Smyth, Northern Ireland’s Troubles, 159.
67. Ibid., 159
68. The Maze Prison was also known as Long Kesh Prison. PIRA prisoners were kept in the H-Blocks of the prison.
69. Hennessey, Hunger Strike.
70. Michaels and Gawthorpe, ‘Spies, Advisors, and Grunts,’ 685.
71. The feces on the walls appears in conspicuous, careful, concentric circles, suggesting ritual.
72. It should be noted that Dom is played by the Irish actor Liam Cunningham, who also plays Dan in Barley.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Samuel Schiffer
Samuel Schiffer is a Master of Arts graduate from the Security Studies Program in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, Washington DC.