Irish Studies

 

 

 

Thornton’s Restaurant is an interesting example of the intersection of the conceived “purity” of Irish agriculture and the urban Irish culinary scene. Many of the dishes demonstrate global culinary fusion and traditional Irish ingredients, but the best example is by far the ‘Eireyu’ Beef with Pomme Mousseline and Shallot Sauce. By examining the dish and tracing its ingredients, this urban/rural culinary intersection is revealed – primarily while tracing the beef and potatoes within the dish.

 The meal

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More on Eireyu Beef

More on Potatoes

More About the Chef

 

 

 

 

Erin Fein, Danielle Heerey, and Sophie Potter

 

Irish Cuisine is often overlooked in the cosmopolitan cuisine world. It is quickly written off as bland and unimaginative – a “peasant” cuisine which does not easily translate into the urban competitive culinary scene.

Particularly interesting is the rhetoric of “tradition” when describing Irish cuisine – Irish food blogs (such as “I Married an Irish Farmer”), television specials, and general pop culture often refer to Irish recipes not as just Irish, but “Traditional Irish” dishes. A quick Google search of Irish cuisine shows this rhetoric well:

“Tradition” is, essentially, an easy way to undermine Irish culinary authority. However, it also engages in another aspect of Ireland food culture: Irish cuisine as representative of an “authentic” Ireland. Irish agriculture is unique because it engages in a long history of Ireland’s land as extraordinarily beautiful, plentiful, and inherent to Ireland’s national identity. As Nicholas Allen argues in Ireland, Empire, and Archipelago, Ireland’s relationship to a faltering Britain after WWI propelled a “self-help” movement in Ireland, which placed an enormous value in local economy, local goods, and, as a result, an “authentic” Ireland: “Ireland was shaped by this change [England], which radicalized a part of the population that otherwise had subsisted on the edges of visible society. The growth in foreign imports displaced already marginal trades, which in turn propelled the growth of self-help movements that evangelized the merits of a local economy” (6). This “local economy” rhetoric  parallels and explains the use of the word “traditional” in Irish cuisine.

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Urban Irish cuisine puts a similar emphasis on this idea of “tradition” when presenting its cuisine – however, in recent years the urban culinary scene, particularly in Dublin, has put an emphasis simultaneously on fusion cuisine. In order to elevate “traditional” Irish cuisine, many restaurants utilize fusion cuisine, particularly French fusion, so that the presentation of Irish cuisine on the global stage is never a “pure” Irish. There is a disconnect here, however, as these restaurants place a great deal of investment into presenting “pure” Irish ingredients. The “country” cuisine of a “traditional” (or, alternatively, a rural) Ireland gets reshaped in the urban culinary scene, while its agricultural origins remain  intact (and are boasted about).

 Thornton’s Restaurant in Dublin is an interesting case study of this division between “pure” Irish agricultural production and its presentation in the urban culinary world. Kevin Thornton, regarded often as one of Ireland’s best chefs, was the first Irish chef to receive two Michelin stars. His food philosophy relies heavily on ideas from the Localvore movement (Kevin Thornton at TEDxDublin), emphasizing the necessity in the food world to switch to local “pure” ingredients. In examining his restaurant, the connection between urban cuisine and rural agriculture is essential. His emphasis on his produce and ingredients (for example, his unique Eireyu beef) has made his restaurant particularly notable in Dublin’s food scene, because it goes above and beyond just using “pure” Irish ingredients: it has livestock tailored into the perfect pure Irish product.

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A Meal at Thornton’s

More About the Localvore Movement

   

American film and television brought a new function for the IRA. Shows such as Hawaii Five-O and Miami Vice utilized the organization as a convenient and captivating subject.  Many had heard of the conflict but not many understood it; The Troubles allowed for throwaway, once off references to the IRA that never had to dive any deeper. Viewers could enjoy the intrigue associated with a foreign conflict featuring masked rebels without ever really needing to understand the conflict itself.

“Up the Rebels,” the premiere episode of Hawaii Five-O’s tenth season, is one such case of throwaway use of the IRA. Released in 1977, relatively early in The Troubles, “Up the Rebels” tells the story of the phony Father Daniel Costigan, a smooth talking terrorist trying to smuggle stolen explosives off the island.  In a move typical of other IRA depictions in film and television, Costigan’s affiliation is not explicitly stated as with the IRA, but instead as with “a rebel splinter group.” This move appears less than insidious, as the audience can deduce Costigan’s rebel group is the IRA based on the stereotypical and rudimentary understandings of the IRA as Irishmen involved in a bombing campaign. But, as Connelly points out, this move does paint a vivid picture of the predominant American representation of the IRA. In American film, the IRA are conveniently also not the IRA, in a classic move when it comes to foreign portrayals of the IRA. While this splinter structure could perhaps describe the Provos, in 1977 they are in fact the organization most closely associated with the popular conception of the IRA, not the splinter cell extremists in the background such representations envision.

In American TV shows, the IRA are commonly portrayed as suave and charming. They also typically become a romantic interest to add a level of angst and increased drama in addition to their violent actions. You can see this parallel with shows like Hawaii Five-O and Miami Vice where one of the female leads falls for the IRA villain, oblivous to his true nature. American drama often likes to make drastic turns in the paths of the characters to ratchet up the level of tension and the contrast between the romantic and the murderer suits this purpose. It makes the villain seem even worse based on his two-faced persona.

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Where the American film industry’s interest in the IRA and The Troubles was generally commercial, the use of the IRA in Irish film took a different route. The year before Ronin — the American action thriller directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Robert De Niro — hit the big screen, Jim Sheridan’s second film about The Troubles was released to critical acclaim.

The Boxer, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, came as a follow-up to the very successful In the Name of the Father, released in 1993. Both films feature immediate differences from the American action films that had starred the IRA over the years. Both films are dramas, centering on themes of justice, innocence, redemption, and the presence of two crippling forces in the daily life of the Northern Irish people: the IRA and the British Army.

In the Name of the Father is based on the story of the Guildford Four, the four people wrongly imprisoned for carrying out the

Guildford bombing and was adapted from the autobiography of Gerry Conlon, who served 14 years in British prison after being wrongly convicted of carrying out the bombing.   The story of the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven had captivated Irish and British audiences in the early 1990’s, as their appeals were brought to court and their convictions ultimately overturned. Already a polarizing topic, the cases were made all the more controversial by allegations of extensive torture on the part of the British justice system in response to the bombings. Upon its release, British media bombarded the film, with the Mail on Sunday warning it would be a “cash bonanza” for the IRA when it reached Irish American audiences. While this criticism of the film was unfounded, funding was a major concern when talking about the IRA and their prospective American audience.

Both films mark a departure from the purely symbolic use of the IRA in films such as Ronin and shows like Hawaii Five-O. Created by an Irish Director and filmed in Ireland, the films explore a much more subtle understanding of the IRA, specifically as it impacted daily life for the people of Northern Ireland. In these films, the IRA’s role as vigilante police forces in Catholic working class communities in Belfast and Derry are exposed, as are their presence on the streets.

The Boxer reveals the unpleasant underbelly of the IRA as an organization that had no place in popular American film. It tells the story of once-promising boxer Danny Flynn’s release from prison after fourteen years in jail. As he begins to work towards peace via his non-sectarian boxing club, it becomes clear that a now fragmented IRA has elements not willing to take part in the peace process. His former boxing coach, Ike, had fallen into alcoholism after Danny’s arrest and having seen many of his young boxers, Catholic and Protestant, killed in the violence. This is one such example of the IRA that never made it into popular film. The “not the IRA” construction allowed mainstream American filmmakers to deny the terrorist realities of the IRA. Here, though, in Irish film, such denials are not acceptable.

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Aran Fox, Josie Milks, and Deanna Palma

This site is dedicated to exploring the close ties between the Irish Republican Army, the clandestine organization that has operated in Britain and Ireland for nearly one hundred years, and film and television. Across continents and decades, the IRA has been represented in various ways in approximately 80 major movies and TV shows. Varied representations, from American to Irish to English, have been realized onscreen. We hope that this site can inform you on these representations, both innocent and sinister.

The site is broken down in two main ways. Firstly, we have included some macro-level analyses: an introduction to the IRA’s history in film, IRA representation in Irish film, and that representation in American film. These also link to some smaller issues, like the “not the IRA” designation employed by many popular onscreen representations.

We have also broken down the importance of these varied portrayals, especially as they have come to inform international perceptions of the IRA and the clever trick filmmakers use to keep their hands clean.

Finally, we have made specific analyses of some of the most significant films and shows to feature the Irish Republican Army:

[Hawaii Five-O]

[Hidden Agenda]

[In the Name of the Father]

[Miami Vice]

[Shadow Dancer]

[The Boxer]

[Works Cited]

The problem with the traditional hero, villain, and victim breakdown utilized by many films to categorize the IRA is not limited to historical inaccuracy. The Northern Irish situation remains poorly understood by many audiences, which in some cases makes film the viewer’s first exposure to the IRA. Thus, as Connelly argues, “Film has largely informed the world about the Irish Republican Army.” This phenomenon can be seen elsewhere in American film, in the long-running obsession with crime films that led to the mafia movies Goodfellas and The Godfather trilogy. In much the same way as these films helped to define America’s understanding of the mafia, so too did film shape America’s understanding of the IRA.

Recognizing that film has played a significant role in defining the IRA for American audiences, the portrayals of the IRA in film then become valuable tools in mapping American understanding. For a nation with significant ties to a British government that dismissed the IRA as a band of criminal thugs and terrorists, the American response in film does not match up. Instead, the tendency is for American film to support the liberation movement the IRA stands in for, but renounce the violent means of attaining it. America, the nation absorbed in popular fantasies of independence and national self-determination, found a suitable target for these fantasies in the IRA. This is made possible by the “us vs. them” structure of many IRA films. In keeping with the American ideals of freedom from oppression and liberty for all, the IRA is set up in direct opposition to a foreign occupying authority. America is predisposed to sympathisize with this kind of struggle because it’s reminiscient of the early nation’s struggle under the thumb of it’s British oppressors. It’s easy for American audiences to view the British as villains when American history textbooks perpetuate that image. “American motion pictures never criticize ‘the Cause,’ only the use of violence which is usually attributed to renegades or lone terrorists condemned by the IRA.” The question is not in the nobility of the cause, but in the methods used.

This move on the part of American filmmakers has done little to try to understand the conflict, instead focusing on repackaging it to fit within “us vs. them” style scripts. The American crime drama can again serve as a counter-example here. “A gangster picture typically focuses on the clash between cops and robbers. The audience, however, intuitively understands that outside the scope of the drama there are millions of law abiding citizens relying on the police for protection.” This “intuitive understanding” is absent in the foreigner’s vision of Northern Ireland influenced by American cinema. The urban warzone depicted in countless IRA films creates the “illusion that the majority of those living in Northern Ireland belong to an indigenous people resisting an unwanted British occupation.”

This, however, is by no means the only portrayal of the IRA. Two major factors influencing the portrayal of the IRA have shown to be country of production and time. Early American representation pigeonholed the IRA as a convenient plot device, with very little attention paid to historical accuracy or detail. As popular understanding of the conflict increased alongside increased American involvement in Northern Irish politics in the 1990’s, this representation began to change. Further, representations within Irish film take a different direction when representing the IRA, opting for an emphasis on their local presence rather than the grand construction of the resistance army, good or bad, contrived by foreign films.

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Within Northern Ireland and indeed within the international stage as a whole, there were extreme and polarized reactions to the 1980 and ’81 hunger strikes in the H-Block of Long Kesh. Bobby Sands became an international figure if not a household name, whether as martyr or terrorist, alongside thirty-some other men. The main objections to the hunger strikes aligned with Margaret Thatcher’s famous statement “crime is crime is crime,” and refused to see Bobby Sands and the other republican protesters as anything but terrorists manipulating their situation into martyrdom.

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 “Since the start of Sands’ self-starvation, The New York Times and The Washington Post have explained Sands’ imprisonment only in terms of convictions for ‘illegal possession of guns.’ That may be technically accurate; it is not informative. Although it taints the melodrama, it is well to remember that Sands is a terrorist.”

     “Broken Window-Pane Politics,” George F. Will

      Washington Post, 30 April 1981, A-35-1-P

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“On the question of principle, Britain’s prime minister Thatcher is right in refusing to yield political status to Bobby Sands, the Irish Republican Army hunger striker. But this dying young man has made it appear that her stubbornness, rather than his own, is the source of a fearful conflict already ravaging Northern Ireland. For that, Mrs. Thatcher is partly to blame. By appearing unfeeling and unresponsive, she and her Government are providing Bobby Sands with a death-bed gift-the crown of martyrdom.”

      “Britain’s Gift to Bobby Sands

      New York Times, 29 April 1981, 26:1

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Supporters of the hunger strikes often appealed to due process, inhuman conditions in Long Kesh, and fear for the explosive reaction from republican supporters that would inevitably come with Sands’ death.

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 “The Massachusetts Legislature unanimously passed a resolution memorializing the President of the United States to urge the Government of Great Britain to recognize Bobby Sands as a political prisoner.

 In co-sponsoring this resolution, Representative Charles Doyle (D-Boston) and Marie Howe (D-Somerville) called upon the British government ‘to recognize British injustice in occupied Ireland which violates the fundamental principles of common law and human decency that persons are interned without being charged with a crime; are unable to attain a trial by a jury of their peers; coerced confessions are admissible into evidence; and political dissidents are presumed guilty until they have proven themselves innocent.’

 The Massachusetts House of Representatives further declared its abhorrence of ‘the inhuman conditions that have led to a second hunger strike’ and requested the President to inform British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of its desire that the proposals ‘submitted by the British Government to those on the first hunger strike on Dec. 18, 1980, and accepted by them as fulfilling the conditions they sought on embarking on their hunger strike, be implemented by prison authorities without delay.’

 In closing, the Massachusetts House requested President Reagan to immediately contact Prime Minister Thatcher and request her to recognize Sands as a political prisoner and that he not be classed as a common criminal.”

      “Mass. House Resolution Backs Bobby Sands”

       Irish Echo, 2 May 1981, 2

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“I am asking you not to let Bobby Sands die. His death will result in more violence and senseless deaths. It’s within your power to bring this situation to a peaceful end. For the good of England, and the good of Ireland, please set forth this important peace initiative.”

      U.S. Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-Queens) in a telegram sent to Margaret Thatcher

      The Irish World, American Industrial Liberator & Gaelic American, 9 May 1981, 4

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Throughout the republican protests, vehement protests came from all around the international stage in regards to the treatment of the men held in Long Kesh, but gone almost entirely unnoticed through those long months were the women performing the same protests in Armagh Prison. According to their male counterparts, “In terms of the prison regime they were deemed doubly guilty – not only had they broken the laws of the state but they had also gone against their feminine gender roles as defined by society” (Sharoni, 113)

Reactions to the Armagh Hunger Strikes

Released in 1992, Patriot Games directed by Phillip Noyce, is the story of a man who saves his family from the terrorist organization that is the Irish Republican Army. In a very oversimplified interpretation of the Ireland and the IRA, the movie fails to provide sufficient background information on the organization. The Hollywood blockbuster film centers it’s plot around a revenge seeking villain who’s attempting to kill American hero Jack Ryan. After saving the Royal, and his own family from an explosion in London, Ryan’s security becomes compromised. In the process of his heroics, Ryan ends up killing the attacker’s baby brother, making Jack Ryan (by default) the next target of a revenge-seeking IRA member.

By simplifying the complex history of the Irish Republican Army, the film leaves out a considerable amount of significant details necessary in understanding IRA motives and ideologies. Without historical context, the villains become very much one dimensional. The IRA men are in the movie simply as a substitute for “bad guys,” avoiding pertinent details as to why the conflict has such a rich rivalry in history. Thus, “terrorism” and “terrorists” result from the lack of detail. By depicting the Irish as terrorists, Hollywood avoids any racial tension and ambiguity that would otherwise cause controversy. Contrarily, being an action film, the audience has certain expectations about the film. That being said, though Patriot Games is based on a book, it is the director’s job to create a movie that people want to watch. For example, on the American side, viewers love to see and relate to a character like Jack Ryan. Someone who is organized and clean cut, Ryan represents the ideal father figure in American media for decades. He’s able to skillfully wield a gun, effectively killing anyone that attempts to tamper with his family’s health. An ex-marine, Ryan has military experience and ends up working his way back into the force later on in the film. (transition) It is much easier to operate within the confines of not only society but also within film. To elaborate, explaining a large portion of the Irish Republican Army’s history between Britain could create too much complexity and ultimately change the direction of the film. Instead, the movie doesn’t try to do too much, each character has a specific role within Hollywood’s “action” genre and the characters, scenes, and story stick to it.

However, as his role in the movie, Sean Miller is meant to portray the role of a “Fenian Bastard.” An animalistic figure at many points in the film, he’s often shown quietly contemplating his next move. A tactical villain, even without speaking it’s clear his mind is always operating with a killer’s thought process. His drive to torture his baby brother’s killer is constantly creating an overwhelming blind rage. In a scene where Miller is being transported by British officials, his stone-cold yet ragingly angry persona can best be seen.

 

Following the Cold War, the United States was experiencing dissolving tension in their long standing conflict with the Soviet Union. In somewhat of a transition period from national enemy, it makes sense to incorporate a group unfamiliar to the United States’ audience. During a time when terrorism was on the verge of becoming a realism to US citizens, the movie uses the generic white Irishman as a stand-in. In doing so, the film provides a clear villain or terrorist, without the same issues of race and culture that would come from say, Middle Eastern terrorism.  able to appeal to a wider audience, which ultimately creates more money-grossed for the film. That being said, the movie the movie tries to create a softer form of terrorism by using the white and American looking Irish to represent the threat. In this way, many critics claim that the film is responsible for furthering a stigma while creating a bad image for the Irish population as a whole. Misrepresented in many ways, The IRA: On Film and Television analyzes the ways in which the film is inaccurately portrayed. As a Hollywood film, it makes more sense to include a maximum amount of explosions, violence, and chaos to draw a larger audience. However, when alternative factors, mostly negative and unrealistic, begin to draw away from the actual plot, viewers begin to interpret the Irish in a Hollywood-manufactured way.

Books such as The IRA: On Film and Television draw attention to the fact that Patriot Games is not the only movie to misrepresent the Irish Republican Army by over simplifying the conflict and what it stands for. According to The IRA: On Film and Television, the movie particularly misguides viewers by centering the plot around a single bloodthirsty Irishman, without fair representation of the IRA as an entire body. Determined to kill the protagonist in order to seek revenge for the death of his brother. Revenge is the motive that IRA member Sean Miller thrives off of in the film. Nearly the entire premise is geared towards getting-even with little-to-no background information on the existing conflicts. Instead, all the viewer knows is that Sean Miller is determined to get even and will do whatever it takes. This system is what generally creates the misconceptions and stigma surrounding the IRA in films. For example, in Patriot Games alone, there is only a very slight mention that the terrorist belongs to a splintered faction of the larger IRA. I myself did not even realize this until I had read The IRA: On Film and Television’s segment. Instead, the single psychotic terrorist represents the IRA as a whole, promoting a simplified image for the entire body of an organization that has a much more complex history. Additionally, for the purpose of being a Hollywood film, Jack Ryan’s revenge-seeking killer is very easily broken out of jail in an unlikely break in during a transport. Overthrowing a heavily armed British police force, The IRA: On Film and Television brings up the issue of the IRA’s seemingly endless resources. As an organization that struggled with nearly every resource, having services expansive as the ones in the movie seem unlikely. After all, is it just a movie.

 

 

Main Source 

Connelly, Mark. The IRA on Film and Television: A History. Jefferson: McFarland 2012. Print.

 

Meaghan Dwyer, Katie Senft, Marion R. Casey. 1981 Hunger Strikes: America Reacts. Archives of Irish America. Website. 12/2/14. http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/aia/exhibits/0501_hunger/ampress/pov_editorials.htm

Weinstein, Laura. “The Significance Of The Armagh Dirty Protest.” Eire-Ireland 41.3/4 (2006): 11-41. Humanities Source. Web. 25 Nov. 2014.

Sharoni, Simona. “Gendering Resistance within an Irish Republican Prisoner Community.” International Feminist Journal of Politics Volume.Issue (Spring 2000): 104-123. Web. 28 Nov. 2014

Sullivan, Megan. “Roisin McAliskey and the Discourse of Incarceration: Gendered Prison Narratives.” Women in Northern Ireland Cultural Studies and Material Conditions. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1999. Print.

Borders, William. “THREE WOMEN IN ULSTER JOIN PRISONERS HUNGER STRIKE.” The New York Times 2 Dec. 1980. Web. 11 Dec. 2014.

Boland, Evan. “”Anorexic”” N.p., n.d. Web.
Bradley, Laura. “Bernadette Devlin McAliskey.” Bernadette Devlin McAliskey. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2014.
McCafferty, Nell. The Armagh Women. Dublin: Co-op, 1981. Print.
Rock, Marcia, Jack Holland, and Angelica Huston. “DAUGHTERS OF THE TROUBLES: BELFAST STORIES.” Daughters of the Troubles, Northern Ireland. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2014.

The four major types of programs we found to be supported by The Ireland Funds were sports, arts, integrated schools, and community centers. Click on each image to explore examples of the specific kinds of organizations we examined.

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