Jimmy Gralton returned to his native Ireland in 1932 when a new Government led by Eammon de Valera took office and at last promised peace after ‘the troubles’. Gralton’s eldest brother had recently died and his elderly mother was left trying to scrape a living off the poor infertile land on the Farm that the local Lord of the Manor leased to them. The whole area in this beautiful corner of Ireland had been decimated by war and was depressed by the sheer poverty of the region which seemed inescapable.
Next to Jimmy’s family cottage was a rundown old small outhouse on his land that had once served as a Community Centre for the village. The moment that he returned everyone started to implore him to let them help restore the place and bring some small joy to the area again. Everyone that is except the local Catholic Priest who immediately renounced both the plan, and the people executing it, as pure evil and agents of the Devil. Nothing went on in ‘his Parish’ without his permission he claimed, and when it came to the matter of classes the Centre would offer he literally blew a fit as he shouted ‘education is the sole domain of the Holy Mother Church.’
The villagers finished the Hall and they all attended the opening Dance even though the Priest stood outside with his notebook and wrote down all the names which he then called out and denounced from the Pulpit the next day. But still the children attended singing and dancing classes, and the adults took part in book clubs and all sort of discussions so much so, that the Hall became the centre of the Village. When a Tenant farmer got evicted, his pals from the IRA took him to the Hall to ask Jimmy and the others for his support. They did so without the backing of their own IRA Commanders who, in those days, were thick as thieves with the Church as each of them were propping the other’s grasp of power.
Loach’s leading man Barry Ward a handsome Irish actor known mainly for his work on television and stage was a very impressive Gralton that everyone in the Village seemed to fall in love with (save the Priest and his cronies). Especially Oonagh played by another Irish stage actor Simone Kirby. In fact Loach ( an Englishman) has used a mainly Irish cast and not necessarily local ones as it includes the Tony Award winning American/Irish Brían F. O’Byrne.
The words that resounded most in this great re-telling of a disturbing time in Ireland’s history belong to Gralton when he faces the angry Priest for one final times and says ‘There is so much hate in your heart, there cannot possibly any room left for any love at all.’
Labels: 2014, Cannes, dramatized reallife, Irish
