With St. Patrick’s Day upon us, Irish culture takes center stage across America. In Hollywood and abroad, a handful of Irish-based films have tackled issues such as immigration, urban and religious strife and the search for inspiration that has painted an evolving picture of the Emerald Isle and its denizens. 
But St. Paddy’s Day is also a day to eat and be merry–and we’re talking about more than just a pint of green ale! So as we salute the Irish in film, we’ve thrown in some recipes for good old-fashioned Irish food and drink–served with a sidedish of Irish superstitions!
Coming to America
“When you get all of the Irish together, we don’t got a gang, we got an army.”
–Amsterdam Vallon, Gangs of New York
Martin Scorsese‘s Gangs of New York (2002) takes place in the 1860s lower Manhattan, in a place called the Five Points. This is where young Irish American Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio) has come to hunt down his father’s killer. His target is William Cutting, aka “Bill the Butcher” (Daniel Day-Lewis) who has since become the merciless new leader of the neighborhood and detests the newly arrived immigrants. But Amsterdam’s fight for family honor and freedom collides with a pivotal moment in New York and American history: the 1863 Civil War Draft Riots. This uprising, fueled by new Americans like Amsterdam, will have repercussions that will spread through the Five Points to the halls of Government and beyond, and reveal a tenacious spirit in the city that endures.
In The Devil’s Own (1997), Brad Pitt plays a seemingly unassuming immigrant sent to stay with distant relative Harrison Ford. Ford‘s large family welcomes the young Irishman with open arms, only to learn he’s a greed-driven terrorist with icy veins.
Similarly, in 1994’s Blown Away, Jeff Bridges plays a successful cop in the bomb squad of the Boston Police Department, who is visited by an Irish immigrant he knew years earlier–an immigrant hell-bent on killing Bridges and his family. [PAGEBREAK] Even all-American action films such as 1992’s Patriot Games feature their share of belligerent Irish transplants. Harrison Ford (again) must dodge Irish terrorists through the streets of Washington D.C., attempting to protect his family (again) from extremists. No luck of the Irish for Ford, apparently. There have been a few exceptions in which Irish immigrants haven’t been treated harshly.
Ron Howard‘s 1992 epic Far and Away, tells a hopeful tale of two immigrants who seek–and find–prosperity in the frontier lands of 19th-century Oklahoma.
There’s also the delightful In America (2002), in which director/writer Jim Sheridan, along with his daughters Naomi and Kirsten Sheridan, paint a poignant and somewhat autobiographical portrait of a young Irish family, who relocate to New York City to escape ghosts from the past. It may seem they only find hardship upon their arrival, but truth be told, it only brings them closer together–and helps heal old wounds.
Hardships of the Homeland
1993’s In the Name of the Father explores the hatred and political infirmity that breeds in the Irish justice system. When a group of Belfast men are falsely accused of a crime they couldn’t possibly have committed, the courts realize someone must take the fall. As a convicted father (Pete Postlethwaite) and son (Daniel Day-Lewis) trudge through prison life, a strong bond develops–a bond more powerful than decades of religious persecution.
Familial relations in the face of tragedy also comprise the conflict of the 1999 adaptation of Frank McCourt’s novel Angela’s Ashes. A film set (primarily) in Ireland that offers up a possible cause of the stereotypical alcoholic behavior displayed by the father (Robert Carlyle) in the film. Such dependence on booze has long been a major cliché of the Irish. Seeing the pain many Irishmen go through for their former IRA affiliations, the audience understands the need for inner peace, no matter the cost.
The searing The Magdalene Sisters (2002) charts several years in the young lives of four “fallen women” who were rejected by their families and abandoned to the mercy of the Catholic Church in 1960’s Ireland. These women were condemned to indefinite sentences of servitude in The Magdalene Laundries, convents that also served as a laundry services, to atone for their “sins.” Also known as the Magdalene Asylums, the last one in Ireland closed in 1996, and only since has the true horror of conditions in these institutions begun to emerge. [PAGEBREAK] The Crying Game (1992), however, raised the bar of dramatic complexity higher than any other film set in Ireland. Such issues as the IRA, hostage taking, bisexuality and unexpected loyalty weave through this story of a British prisoner (Forest Whitaker) befriended by his Irish captor (Stephen Rea), and the bizarre relationship that grows from the unlikely pairing. Nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture, the film blends modern codes of love with ancient hatreds.
Irish Inspiration
Dublin has soul, but gets soul music in the 1991 gem The Commitments, a film that merges the music of Motown with Ireland’s urban convolution. Though not a completely lighthearted film, The Commitments, directed by Alan Parker (who also helmed Angela’s Ashes), portrays young Irish adults as optimistic and intensely creative. Extremely fresh–and funny. Inspiration, however, is also found in darker Irish drama.
Oscar winner My Left Foot (1989), also directed by Jim Sheridan, may be remembered as a bleak slice-of-life film, but this tale of a man (played by Daniel Day-Lewis) battling cerebral palsy is a triumph of spirit, an accomplishment of Irish cinema. Much like The Commitments, My Left Foot explores the much ignored cathartic nature of the Irish–an artistic people–and unearths a rarely seen compassion between mother and son. Modern Irish filmmakers have also found inspiration by simply going back to their roots.
Director Neil Jordan (who also directed The Crying Game) found this to be true when he made Michael Collins (1996), a stirring account of the man, played by Liam Neeson, who successfully fought British rule in the 1920s through the use of guerrilla warfare. It’s Irish patriotism at its proudest.
