![]() Banshees of Inisherin is about an island off the coast of Ireland, but that island is to the east and it is much, much bigger than Achill. I bring it up not to mock “plastic paddies” or to undermine his entitlement to write about Ireland – he was surely called “Irish” by his neighbours growing up – but because I think his Englishness (in particular the state of being first generation Irish) is key to understanding his work. ![]() This is okay and it shouldn’t be hurtful to mention it. He has Irish parents, and some English people in these circumstances have very different relationships to their Irishness than others, even within the same family. Martin McDonagh is an English man from England who lives in England. And while he could arguably now be counted among names like Jack Charlton and Daniel Day-Lewis who will forever be associated with Ireland and their positive contribution to Irish history and culture, honesty commands us to say that, unlike those two gentlemen, he was calling himself Irish before he reached that level of glory.Īn OUTSTANDING speech from Martin McDonagh ⭐️ #EEBAFTAs /7fbdOhTvu2- BAFTA February 19, 2023 It also is misleading to group him in with British-born Irish residents like John Boorman, Mícheál Mac Liammóir or Jeremy Irons because he does not, and has not, lived here. Nor can he be listed alongside Sharon Horgan or Paul Howard, who moved to Ireland when they were old enough to notice accent differences, what they signified, and to apply a child’s curiosity to the inherently ridiculous questions of “us and them” that followed. ![]() After all, it is inaccurate to lump him in with English-born Irish people like Phil Lynott or Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, because he did not grow up here. Martin McDonagh is usually described as a London-born Irish writer or an Irish-British writer, but this doesn’t really cut it. That different perspective on how big and small places relate to each other got me thinking about the movie’s acclaimed writer-director and the recent bad-tempered debates about his right to tell Irish stories.įrom Brendan O’Neill in the Daily Mail to Mark O’Connell in Slate, a number of commentators this year have questioned the motives of Londoner McDonagh’s repeated use of rural Ireland as a setting, the authenticity of these tales, and if the violence and alcohol use of his characters should be seen as a glorified Paddy joke by an Englishman. This reminded me of how on Achill, where much of the movie is filmed, Ireland is often referred to as “an island off the coast of Achill”. THERE IS A moment early on in the Banshees of Inisherin when Kerry Condon’s character tells Colin Farrell that he “lives on an island off the coast of Ireland”. ![]()
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