Screening Ulster.

Cinema and the

Unionists Richard Gallagher
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Screening Ulster
Cinema and the Unionists
Richard Gallagher
Screening Ulster
 Richard Gallagher

Screening Ulster
Cinema and the Unionists
Richard Gallagher
Co. Donegal, Ireland

ISBN 978-3-031-23435-4    ISBN 978-3-031-23436-1 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23436-1

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 Acknowledgements

I started this project, which started out as doctoral research, with someone
who is not here anymore and ended it with two people who are here and
were not at the beginning. It is these people that I would like to acknowl-
edge first and foremost. My father, Daniel Gallagher, will forever have a
huge influence on my life, whereas my sons, Daniel and Tadhg, made what
would have been one of the worst times of my life (the COVID years) one
of the best. It is also my father that this book is dedicated and I took great
joy in writing, albeit briefly, about his favourite film, The Quiet Man.
This book could not have been completed without the help of many
others. My fiancé, Anna Duffy, has always been there to pick me up. My
mother, Elva Gallagher, has been a rock throughout my entire life and was
no different as I carried out this research. My PhD supervisors, Professor
Cahal McLaughlin, Dr. Sian Barber and Professor Dominic Bryan (in fact,
the whole Bryan family deserve a mention) have been crucial throughout
this period, and I am so glad I was able to choose such knowledgeable,
kind and helpful people to aid my PhD journey. I would also like to thank
my fantastic examiners that saw me over the line, Dr. Des O’Rawe and Dr.
Stephen Baker. I must also say thanks to some other people who have
helped me track down some of the films included in the study or have
generally offered valuable advice: Professor John Brewer, Tim Loane, Dr.
Laurence McKeown, Lucy Baxter, Dr. Jennie Carlsten, Dr Gordon
Gillespie and Martin Lynch. Compiling a comprehensive list of films that
depict unionist characters was also made easier by consulting previous lists
of films about the conflict. These lists were created by the CAIN database,
Brian McIlroy, Kevin Rockett and John Hill and I also wish to thank them

v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

for providing these valuable resources to the public. I must also thank
Queen’s University Belfast’s The Institute of Irish Studies, under the
guardianship of Professor Peter Gray, for creating such a welcoming and
informative environment to learn about Ireland. I will also be forever
grateful to Dr. Markus Schleich for letting me share an office with him!
 Contents

1 Introduction  1

2 An Emergence of Unionist Representation in British Cinema 21

3 The
 Rural and the Repressed: Unionists in December Bride
(1991) and This Is the Sea (1997) 53

4 Paramilitaries
 Begin to Dominate Representations of
Unionists 67

5 The ‘Troubles Comedy’ and Unionism101

6 Unionist
 Screws: Prison Officers in H3 (2001), Silent
Grace (2004) and Hunger (2008)119

7 The Kids Are Alright: Adolescent Unionism135

8 The End of ‘Troubles Cinema’?157

9 Conclusion177

Index185

vii
 About the Author

Richard Gallagher is from Donegal, Ireland and was awarded a PhD

from Queen’s University Belfast in 2021. His research focuses on media
studies and British and Irish cinema. He has published an article in a spe-
cial edition of Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media titled “The
Troubles Crime Thriller and the Future of Films about Northern Ireland”.
A forthcoming article titled “Unionist Screws: Analysing a Primary
Approach to Depicting Northern Irish Unionists in British and Irish
Cinema” will be published in a future edition of the Journal of British
Cinema and Television

ix
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

The unionist community in Northern Ireland’s treatment in commercial

narrative cinema has been a topic of discussion for many decades now
without a focused and comprehensive study into the issue being produced.
The prevailing thought has been that the community has largely been
either ignored or maligned, particularly in comparison to their nationalist
counterparts, and that they have never really been given much thought by
filmmakers. Some have even argued that this cinematic deficit is reflective
of how the community is treated by the media in general. This book seeks
to address this issue by providing a detailed analysis of unionist representa-
tion in cinema over the last 40 years. The objectives will be to determine
the validity of such claims and to offer explanations where possible.
However, the complexity of the Northern Irish unionist identity can-
not be overstated, and it may therefore be necessary to start this study into
the community’s cinematic representation by attempting to unpack this
identity and its many fractures and contradictions. Northern Irish union-
ists are primarily of Protestant faith and in a political sense, whilst wishing
to maintain the union between Britain and Northern Ireland, generally
profess loyalty to the monarchy, support the existence of the Northern
Irish state and assert that its position within the United Kingdom has been
to the state’s benefit. At the core of the Northern Irish unionist identity is
an imbricated British identity—an identity that, unlike unionism, has been
well catered for by cinema and a proper assessment of the unionist com-
munity’s representation in film is particularly difficult as a result. The

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2023
R. Gallagher, Screening Ulster,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23436-1_1
2 R. GALLAGHER

British identity itself is also characterised by its difficulty to define; it

merges four nations into one, is constantly being negotiated and has his-
torically needed to be flexible to incorporate empire. When overlapping
versions of the Northern Irish unionist identity such as loyalist (a term
usually used to define working-class unionists), Protestant (as both an
ethno-communal designation and indicator of religious belief) and Irish
(both Northern Irish and Irish in a general sense) are factored in, the com-
plexity becomes even greater and significant tensions arise.
This complexity is in part owing to an identity crisis caused by the for-
mation of the Northern Irish state in 1921. The island of Ireland was
partitioned into two states following the 1920 Government of Ireland
Act. One, a state which would eventually become known as the Republic
of Ireland, predominantly Catholic and made up of Irish nationalists who
sought independence from Britain and the other, Northern Ireland, pre-
dominantly Protestant and made up of unionists who wished to maintain
the union with Britain. Despite this new state being crucial to their new
sense of identity, generally seeing themselves as either British-Irish or
Ulster-Scot, like nationalists, unionists had not an established affiliation to
the new state; even Ulster as a province was not represented by the new
Northern Ireland state as three of the nine counties in the province lay
beyond the state’s boundaries and in the Republic of Ireland. Alex Kane,
a prominent unionist, explains that:

[U]nionists didn’t want partition, they didn’t want the break up of Ireland,
they didn’t want the break up of Ulster ending up with the six counties.
Because we lost the union between Britain and Ireland, because we were
contained to six counties and a majority that we knew would not be stabi-
lised at 30%, and because we thought things would grow against us, union-
ism became paranoid. It became insular and afraid of everyone.
(Spencer 2006)

This identity crisis is best exemplified by understanding the nature of

the Orange Order, an international Protestant masonic-style fraternity
order founded in County Armagh in 1795. The institution itself is perhaps
universally accepted to be synonymous with Northern Irish unionism, yet,
given as the organisation pre-dates partition, something of a paradox exists
as it continues to operate in Ireland on an all-Ireland basis and is headed
by the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland.
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

This complexity that has come to characterise Northern Irish unionism

is found to be largely absent in cinema. Therefore, this research looks for
this complexity but finds that representations offer a much narrower defi-
nition of the unionist identity that rarely escapes a polarised relationship
with Irish nationalism, the term given to the predominantly Catholic,
ethno-nationalist group in Ireland who support some sort of indepen-
dence from Britain and who are the majority in Ireland. In further contrast
to unionists, Irish nationalists also tend to assert that Northern Ireland’s
place in the United Kingdom has been to the detriment of Irish interests,
to support a united Ireland and oppose the existence of the Northern
Irish state.
Irish nationalism, or at least a soft nationalist perspective, has domi-
nated the landscape of cinema about Northern Ireland with the majority
of characters depicted coming from this background, and this appears to
have happened at the expense of portrayals of unionists. This is an under-
standing supported by much of the previous writing on the subject; refer-
ring to the religion that most unionists subscribe to, John Hill defines
Protestants in Northern Ireland as “a group conspicuously absent from
most films about Ireland” (Hill 1987: 191). One of the only self-­identifying
unionists to have been significantly involved in filmmaking in Northern
Ireland—a revealing fact in itself—is the writer Gary Mitchell who explains,
“If you judged Northern Ireland purely on the basis of films you would
think there are no Protestants here” (McKittrick 2008). Brian McIlroy is
another who, referring to depictions of unionism generally being insuffi-
cient as a result of this absence, finds that “one must look hard for a like-
able or sympathetic Protestant character in films dealing with Northern
Ireland; in fact, one rarely discovers a well-rounded protagonist or antago-
nist” (McIlroy 2006: 87). Writing in 2019, Ruth Barton also argues that
in the current political landscape the loyalist perspective should be “treated
with greater complexity than has previously been the case” (Barton
2019: 143).
Given that the dominant form of British identity is understandably the
identity most people around the world will associate with the British iden-
tifying Northern Irish unionists, it could be expected that the community
would be similarly depicted in cinema to how British people are generally.
However, typical depictions of Britishness are found not to apply to the
Northern Irish unionist community. What this research has detected is
that in actuality unionists are often ignored or even presented in opposi-
tion to that dominant form. In all the representations of unionism that
4 R. GALLAGHER

exist, you might also expect to see some sympathy towards the existing
status quo, particularly given the general idea—promoted in other forms
of media—that republican paramilitaries are terrorists, yet none of these
types of portrayals appear with any substance. This is also particularly
interesting in the context of the conflict in and about Northern Ireland,
commonly referred to as the Troubles, which lasted from the late 1960s to
the 1990s and has been the dominant theme throughout almost all of the
films about Northern Ireland. One might expect the unionist narrative of
British people under attack and fighting a benevolent force to be met with
the same sort of appreciation in cinema as when people from mainland
Britain have historically found themselves in similar situations. However,
this narrative concerning Northern Irish unionism has never been vali-
dated in either British cinema or cinema in general; for example, no
‘Troubles film’ has ever presented Northern Irish unionists in the way
British people have been presented in films such as Zulu (Endfield, 1964)
and Dunkirk (Nolan, 2017). It is this phenomenon that this research will
seek to explain.
Their maligned status in cinema has not gone unnoticed by unionists
themselves. In fact, their lack of cultural and political representation in the
media is a common grievance. In this way, an interesting parallel can be
drawn between unionism and deprived minority communities elsewhere
in the world. However, important differences include the fact that union-
ists once enjoyed relative power and privilege. Theirs is also an identity
that attempts to link with the master narrative of the state and whose cul-
ture and historical narratives are prioritised in other arenas specifically in
public spaces. Unionism also once assumed superiority over others and
other ethno-nationalist groups, in particular, Catholic nationalists who
were discriminated against for decades in the unionist-dominated Northern
Ireland state. The lens through which they now look at issues of equality
is often considered skewed as a result. Typical debates surrounding Third
Cinema also cannot quite be moulded to fit in the context of Northern
Irish unionism.1 Stephen Baker explains, “For many, the idea of loyalism’s
association with Third Cinema or a ‘poor Celtic cinema’ will seem incon-
gruous given its historical defence of monarchy and imperial power”
(Baker 2015: 96). Unionist political power over nationalists can be seen to
gradually deteriorate in the years after the Troubles started, as did the

1
An introduction to Third Cinema is provided by Mike Wayne in Political film: the dialec-
tics of third cinema (London: Pluto Press, 2001).
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

British Empire which provided Protestants in Belfast relatively prosperous

careers in shipbuilding, once the material expression of pro-union
Protestant power, influence and prestige. This makes unionism somewhat
distinct and as Baker explains, “its attempts to appropriate the language of
the oppressed have been treated with incredulity and have, at times, looked
absurd” (Ibid.). A cruel irony, regarding the lack of unionist representa-
tion in fiction film, is that the Belfast shipyards where shipbuilding once
took place is now a post-industrial hub for Northern Ireland’s fledgling
film industry and home to production facilities for HBO, an American
film and television production company.
Unionism’s inability to adopt Third Cinema principles to better the
community’s cinematic representation is an example of how the inability
to adopt models perceived to be left-wing or progressive is endemic within
unionism more generally. This is particularly noticeable when looking at
working-class unionists as class-consciousness has always been stifled, and
continues to be, in one way or another. It is hoped that this study will
show how this problem contributes to the community’s external represen-
tation in popular cultural forms, with a focus here obviously being on
commercial fiction films.
However, it can be said that representations have not all been positive
for Irish nationalists and that the absence of unionist characters has also
been a cause for concern to nationalists. Martin McLoone suggests that
several false assumptions are often made; one of which is that although
nationalism is generally viewed as being treated more favourably than
unionism “just because you’re up there on the big screen doesn’t mean
that you are being shown in a favourable light or that your politics emerge
with supreme clarity” (McLoone 2008: 196). Furthermore, he claims that
although cinema might appear to serve well the ideological position of
Irish nationalism, this should not imply that people from the Irish nation-
alist community do not take issue with representations of the Troubles as
well. He explains that the absence of unionism, and especially of loyalist
paramilitaries, has cemented the impression that republicans alone have
been to blame for the violence and at the same time it has exonerated
unionism, loyalism and the British from any culpability (McLoone 2006:
157). Although the majority of killings during the Troubles were commit-
ted by republican paramilitaries, a significant number were also carried out
by loyalist paramilitaries, and McLoone argues that the cinematic deficit
causes yet another failure in regard to presenting a comprehensive picture
6 R. GALLAGHER

of the conflict.2 This grievance at filmic representations can also be under-

stood to be more in keeping with how nationalists view the media in gen-
eral as there is traditionally scepticism within nationalism towards the
media, specifically the news media, due to the perception that it is in some
way pro-British and that it downplays loyalist violence and particularly col-
lusion with security services. Furthermore, Hill identifies a general failure
in films, specifically British films, to place violence in a social and political
context that might explain it. In this way, he can also be seen to identify
perhaps less a bias in favour of Irish republicanism than initially was under-
stood as the implication is that a justification for republican violence is
seemingly not as apparent in these films as it could be were the likes of
nationalist discrimination and state violence and collusion accounted for
appropriately.
If working-class unionism’s inability to meaningfully challenge the
unionist status quo has been obvious, this is not to say that unionism is
wholly incapable of rebellion. In fact, a specific characteristic of unionism
that is noticeably omitted to a large degree in cinema thus far has been the
resistant nature of unionism regarding its relationship with the British
establishment. In reality, rarely has unionism been obedient or servile to
British governments with unionism instead seeing itself as an integral part
of the United Kingdom and often engaging in Anglophobia, protest, civil
disobedience and even terrorism to challenge decisions made in
Westminster.
Key tensions exist within unionism owing to this contradictory rela-
tionship with the British state and understanding how loyalist paramilitar-
ies function in relation to the state can identify a further example of this.
Cahal McLaughlin explains, “Their loyalty has always been conditional.
They have links with the British military and intelligence sources in a joint
battle against republicanism […] and yet they are also subject to assassina-
tion and imprisonment by that state, if they are caught or if it is expedient”
(McLaughlin 2004: 242). James McAuley also explains how loyalism has
proved such an enigma in this regard when he states:

For many observers, their pledge of loyalty to the British state is at best an
unrequited love affair, while the paradox of those asserting to be its most

2
According to Malcolm Sutton, who undertook extensive research into killings during the
Troubles, republican paramilitary groups are responsible for 2,058 deaths whilst loyalist
paramilitary groups are responsible for 1,027 (Sutton 2002).
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

devoted citizens directly challenging the statute, imperative and representa-

tives of the same state remains all but incomprehensible. But conflicts
between loyalists and the state are long-standing and have manifested
throughout the history of Northern Ireland. Indeed, it is possible to argue
that it was loyalist resistance and defiance that gave rise to the existence of
Northern Ireland and contributed directly to the framing of its politics for
the next fifty years. It remains central to its future political direction.
(McAuley 2016: 1)

Furthermore, although unionists are proud to identify as British and

loyal to the British monarchy, they can also be characterised as deeply dis-
trustful of those in mainland Britain and resentful of any notion that those
in Scotland, Wales and particularly England have a monopoly on what it
means to be British. Gillian McIntosh even argues that anti-Englishness is
shown in the stereotypes rehearsed in unionist culture and literature in the
first half of the twentieth century to be a general feature of unionism’s
complex relationship with Britain (McIntosh 1999: 70). Unionists argued
for their separateness and were critical of both the southern and British
states; the work was also elitist, professedly loyal to the crown and empire,
and at times openly Anglophobic (McIntosh 1999: 3). Following more
contemporary cultural examples and in keeping with how representations
have tended to steer clear of complexity, this oppositional element is
largely ignored in cinema in favour of unionists being depicted as a more
subservient people. Despite loyalist paramilitaries dominating cinematic
depictions of unionists and therefore violent resistance being implicit, the
antagonistic nature of loyalist paramilitaries is also curtailed significantly
by cinema’s preoccupation with presenting loyalist paramilitary collusion
with British security services as the ultimate transgression; this preoccupa-
tion results in loyalist paramilitaries principally being portrayed as another
arm of the state rather than a terrorist resistance group.
This book will also explore the explanations for such a cinematic deficit.
The most dominant explanation historically has been the hegemony of
Hollywood cinema and its desire not to upset the sensibilities of an Irish
nationalist supporting, Irish American audience. Using Tom Nairn’s
notion of the ‘anti-imperialist myth’, McIlroy argues in favour of this by
including American filmmakers as those “who prefer to accept the anti-­
imperialist view of Northern Ireland’s existence” (McIlroy 2001: 11).
North American depictions have generally produced an image of the
Troubles that sees Irish nationalists as an underdog liberation movement
8 R. GALLAGHER

forced into fighting a malevolent British superpower with virtually no

acknowledgement of the existence of unionism. Although the liberal con-
sensus around the use of violence is never troubled and the characters with
a nationalist political outlook are sometimes portrayed as the uncivilised
Celt and of low intellect, their cause is generally seen as being more wor-
thy and examined in much more detail than the cause of the unionists.
This is particularly surprising when you consider how Irish republicans
(republican is a term that tends to be used to describe the more militant,
rebellious elements of Irish nationalism) are typically maligned and vilified
in other forms of media, particularly in the British news media.
These depictions have played a significant role in framing the conflict
and establishing traditions of representation given that up until the 1980s
Ireland had little autonomy over depictions of itself, with depictions
almost entirely being produced by either Britain or the United States. The
type of depictions produced from these countries also largely reduced
Ireland to a primitive backward place and implied a contrast between the
characteristics of Irish society and those of an apparently advanced modern
society. This type of depiction also took two forms according to Hill, with
Ireland either being presented as a “blissful, rural idyll” or a “primarily
dark and strife torn maelstrom” (Hill 1987: 147). Due to large-scale Irish
emigration to America encouraging a different perspective on Ireland, it is
argued that Hollywood was more inclined to present Ireland as the for-
mer, whereas, due to Britain’s more direct legacy of military and political
involvement, British productions were more inclined to present Ireland as
the latter. This view of Ireland adopted by British productions is also
claimed by Hill not to have emerged newly born, but rather “drew on the
reservoir of ideas and images inherited from earlier historical periods”
(Hill 1987: 148). Hollywood productions are also understood to present
violence differently; whereas British films often see violence as the prob-
lem—or danger—that the narrative must resolve if the status quo is to be
confirmed, Hollywood productions are more likely to see violence as a
mechanism for problem-resolution (Hill 1987: 152).
This is not to say that all depictions of nationalists are favourable in
Hollywood films; a number of Hollywood films have irrefutably heinous
Irish republican villains. However, the narratives are always careful to
explain that these characters do not represent mainstream republicanism
but are an extreme splinter group whose actions are detrimental to what
would otherwise be a morally just republican cause. Mark Connelly notes:
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

Movies like Patriot Games (Paramount, 1992) and Blown Away (MGM,
1994) however, made it clear that the heartless terrorist was an IRA rene-
gade, making the actual organization appear more reasonable in contrast
and avoiding offending the IRA’s American supporters. (Connelly 2012: 2)

A similar dynamic is also apparent in a more recent film, Martin

Campbell’s The Foreigner (Campbell, 2017), which is based on Stephen
Leather’s 1992 novel, The Chinaman.
However, this explanation—that the cinematic deficit is generally the
result of Hollywood’s pro-nationalist sympathies—doesn’t adequately
explain why the cinematic deficit still exists in the films produced outside
of North America and specifically in the United Kingdom. Furthermore,
this explanation becomes increasingly problematic as despite Hollywood
not producing any films about the Troubles since the beginning of the
twenty-first century, specifically the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York
and the new relationship the United States was forming with Britain in the
run-up to the Iraq War, the cinematic deficit can be seen to continue.
Another explanation often proffered is that unionists do not make films
or at least don’t make films about the Troubles. Moreover, it is a stereo-
type that unionists are generally uninterested in the arts in comparison to
their nationalist neighbours. This is a stereotype that has its origins as far
back as 1944 when the Dublin dramatist Seán O’Casey wrote an article in
the magazine Time and Tide that questioned whether Northern Ireland
had ever produced anyone of the same calibre as Yeats (McIntosh 1999:
147). This seeming aversion to the arts is often seen as being reflected in
the fact that there are so few unionists making films about the Troubles.
An explanation suggested by the aforementioned Gary Mitchell is that
working-class loyalists see the arts as a realm belonging to nationalists. He
has stated:

I believe there is a deep-rooted ignorance of the arts within loyalist com-

munities. This is the reality I have always come across within loyalist areas—
that they do not trust drama. They will tell you coldly that drama belongs to
the Catholics—drama belongs to the nationalists. (McKittrick 2008)

Mitchell’s analysis correlates to how, particularly in Belfast, unionists

traditionally worked in manual labour, either in the linen factories or in
shipbuilding. Perhaps explaining nationalism’s dominance of the arts,
these were jobs that nationalists largely didn’t have access to due to
10 R. GALLAGHER

discrimination and preference in industries; access to education and the

arts can be understood as a way for discriminated against nationalists to
find a way out of unemployment. Mitchell’s analysis also correlates with
Max Weber’s definition of the ‘Protestant work ethic’. This is a concept
that emphasises that hard work, discipline and frugality are a result of a
person’s subscription to the values espoused by the Protestant faith (Weber
1930). Although it may be essentialising, this concept offers one theory as
to why the production of art, generally seen as the antithesis of the values
that constitute the ‘Protestant work ethic’ concept, may not be tradition-
ally considered as salient to the predominantly Protestant, unionist com-
munity. At the very least, this can be understood to have contributed to
the creation of the stereotype. Indeed, this phenomenon, between union-
ism’s world of work and nationalism’s world of culture, is commented on
in many of the films analysed in this book.
In comparison, working-class nationalist communities appear to be a
hub for creative talent as many of those involved in the production of the
films explored within this research come from that background. McIlroy
also attributes Irish nationalism’s interest in the arts to the republican
movement, stating:

Unquestionably, the republican movement in Ulster has sparked a remark-

able rise of interest in the Irish language, history, music, dance and the visual
arts. The Foyle Film Festival and the West Belfast Film Festival are part of
this trend. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Field Day project and the success of
Seamus Heaney in gaining the Nobel Prize for literature have underscored
the general sympathy for Irish nationalism. (McIlroy 2001: 18)

Perhaps this perceived bias towards nationalism is only natural then

given that nationalists are more active in making films about the conflict
and the solution, therefore, is for unionists themselves to make more films
and not to rely on films produced by outsiders. This necessity is made
greater due to so many films produced in Northern Ireland funded and
produced with the help of Screen Ireland and others in the Republic.
Screen Ireland, formerly known as the Irish Film Board, is the Republic of
Ireland’s state development agency for the Irish film, television and anima-
tion industry. The agency has also presented something of a problem in
this regard as, despite Screen Ireland being set up to reap financial gain for
the Republic of Ireland, it has always been all-Ireland in cultural orienta-
tion. This is a reflection of the art world in Ireland in general which, in
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

truth, has never embraced partition. To counter this reliance on others,

Baker suggests:

Loyalism needs to be the subject of a politically informed cinema and it

needs to be a participant in a critically engaged film culture if it is to chal-
lenge and change its lamentable image and reputation on screen. In short, if
loyalism feels it has been misrepresented and misplaced in the films made by
others, then the obvious solution is for loyalists to make their own.
(Baker 2015: 95)

In 2008, the Chief Executive of Northern Ireland Screen (the national

screen agency for Northern Ireland), Richard Williams, commented on
the lack of unionists writing films. He argued that proposals for movies
told from a unionist point of view are rare and states:

There isn’t a pile of projects in our office that we’re somehow rejecting.
That sort of material is rarely written—we receive more material that has a
broad nationalist slant to it. Interestingly, writers from a Protestant back-
ground have a tendency to just shift away from here and ply their trade
elsewhere. But even when they do stay here, they’ve a tendency not to write
about this sort of thing. (McKittrick 2008)

The most dominant form of cultural expression espoused by unionist

communities can be identified not on stage, in films or books but in the
loyalist musical bands that accompany the Orange Order during their tra-
ditional and often-contentious parades. It is this specific form of cultural
expression that led the Nobel Prize-winning poet and board member of
the aforementioned Field Day Theatre Company, Seamus Heaney, to
describe Lambeg drums (a loud percussion instrument historically used by
loyalist bands) as presiding over unionist culture “like giant tumours”
(Bennett 1998: 210). Terence Brown has also commented on the inade-
quacy of art produced by unionists when he states, “That [Protestant]
imagination is one that in modern times (at least since 1886) had recourse
to a vision of the protestant community’s history which is starkly simple in
outline and depressingly lacking in emotional range and complexity”
(Brown 1985: 5). The Belfast-born novelist and screenwriter, Ronan
Bennett, expands on this by claiming that many of the actors who do
come from a ‘Protestant’ background such as Kenneth Branagh and
Stephen Rea have had to discard unionist culture to achieve artistic fulfil-
ment. He explains:
12 R. GALLAGHER

What Branagh shares with Rea, (Van) Morrison and (James) Galway and a
host of other lesser known artists, is the realisation that to find artistic fulfil-
ment he would have to look beyond the confines of the Protestant world.
To remain is to be enclosed in a world where ‘culture’ is restricted to little
more than flute bands, Orange marches and the chanting of sectarian slo-
gans at football matches. (Bennett 1998: 210)

However, Gillian McIntosh argues that unionist expressions of their

culture are not as redundant as some have claimed. She states, “Contrary
to the argument of some commentators, unionist visions of their history
and their expressions of their culture, in common with their nationalist
counterparts, were neither lacking in emotional range, nor in complexity”
(McIntosh 1999: 2). She justifies this point by claiming that, since the
beginning of the state, rich political culture was key to presenting a
homogenised Protestant state and creating a particular identity for
Northern Ireland and an endorsement of unionist culture and rule. The
manifestation of this unionist hegemony was most clearly identified in the
large-scale public demonstrations and political culture associated with
them in events such as the erection of the statue to the state’s founder,
Edward Carson, in the Festival of Britain in Northern Ireland in 1951,
and in the numerous royal visits which culminated in the triumphal coro-
nation visit of Elizabeth II in 1953 (Ibid.).
This also makes the cinematic deficit even more inexplicable as it poses
the question: If unionists are competent, or at least were competent, in
promoting their culture in such a way, why have they been so lacking
when it comes to cinema? One theory is that unionists have traditionally
been excellent at controlling and promoting narratives through mediums
or in arenas that they had control over, for example, street marching dis-
plays, statues, monuments and royal visits, and unqualified at it when it
comes to arenas they do not control, for example, film, literature, theatre
and music. The latter arenas, unlike the former, thanks principally to polit-
ical dominance in a state created for them, were always susceptible to
being impinged upon by outsiders such as Britain, the Republic of Ireland
and dissidents from within Northern Ireland.3 Likewise, an argument

3
Some arenas have a more complicated relationship with unionism; the BBC’s regional
Northern Irish division, BBCNI, was heavily controlled by the unionist state, although again
was not impervious to being impinged upon by BBC in London. Extensive work on this
subject has been done and can be found in Robert Savage’s The BBC’s ‘Irish Troubles’:
Television, Conflict and Northern Ireland (2015).
 1 INTRODUCTION 13

could be made that nationalists attached themselves to media and the arts
precisely because the nationalist community did not have access to the
arenas that unionists controlled.
In what perhaps is both a cause and product of this seeming lack of
interest in popular art forms by unionists, or at least in popular art forms
concerned with depicting the Troubles, the unionist political position is
often found to be difficult to articulate. Chronicled by Baker, an anony-
mous contributor to a community discussion about working-class union-
ists in Northern Ireland once expressed this difficulty at self-articulation
when they stated:

We knew full well that the media were short-changing us when it came to
representing ‘our’ side of the story, but what was our side of the story? We
couldn’t even explain it properly ourselves. And it’s still the same. There’s
plenty of times people around here have refused to take part in cross-­
community meetings, not because we don’t want to sit down with Catholics,
but because we don’t have the self-confidence to do so. Few of us can articu-
late our case the way they can theirs. (Baker 2015: 83)

However, this inability is not just confined to the working class and can
be seen to be endemic within unionism. Edna Longley contends, “Irish
nationalism is sexier than unionism, partly thanks to clearer self-­articulation
and better propaganda, partly to less tangible assets” (McKay 2005: 290).
David McKittrick explains that journalists who visit Northern Ireland
often speak admiringly of the presentational skills of nationalists, whilst
saying they find unionists “shockingly poor at the business of winning
friends and influencing people” (McKittrick 2008). As stated, unionism is
certainly a much more complicated identity than nationalism and as such,
it is both difficult to portray and exceptionally impractical to expect out-
siders to adequately depict. In constructing a nationalist narrative, nation-
alists are able to draw on parallels with national liberation movements
from elsewhere in the world. In contrast, the unionist narrative is much
more unique with the only parallels ever drawn being with unseemly colo-
nial regions, apartheid South Africa and the Ku Klux Klan (all of which are
generally rejected as being comparable by unionists). Unionism is there-
fore devoid of the confidence and astuteness that nationalism can draw
upon to articulate its position and, as Baker claims, results in unionists
being unable to “articulate itself through anything other than its own
exclusive idioms” (Baker 2015: 95).
14 R. GALLAGHER

Another explanation provided as to why art typically produced from

within unionism is often perceived to be inadequate relates to the increas-
ing isolation unionism faces geographically, culturally, politically and
socially; this explanation can also be considered somewhat ironic given the
global nature of the British identity historically. The aforementioned
Belfast-born actor, Stephen Rea, when asked about his nationalist political
outlook being unusual for someone from a unionist background, explains,
“Unionists were, and still are, cut off not just from Catholics and from
Ireland, but from the world. It’s pure isolation. And it is so drummed into
the young that they cannot let go of these views” (O’Hagan 2018). This
isolation and confinement are exemplified by the current leaders of politi-
cal unionism, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), being constantly
criticised for their illiberal and conservative views on social and environ-
mental issues. Indeed, the most vociferous criticism often comes from the
mainland United Kingdom where a modern secular British society can in
many ways be seen to be the antithesis of Northern Irish unionism.
Certainly, the Northern Irish unionist identity is not a form of Britishness
that is easily accepted by a liberal Britain that has itself been influenced by
Irishness to a significant degree due to its close proximity and a large num-
ber of Irish immigrants. On the island of Ireland, the Republic of Ireland
continues to prosper independently and become increasingly more socially
liberal. As a result, this highlights unionism’s lack of desire to expand and
grow its cultural identity and its preference for defending what cultural
product it has, however obstinate it might seem to others. McKittrick
explains that the perceived unionist narrative is “one of a reactionary fron-
tier community grimly holding on and opposing change. That may be
something of a parody, but it is enough to make film-makers shudder and
turn their attentions elsewhere” (McKittrick 2008). Certainly, these are
not attributes that make this narrative attractive to storytellers.
In contrast, the attractiveness of nationalist narratives and perspectives
can be understood by analysing film and storytelling customs. Irish nation-
alism is perceived as being inherently about the rebel and the underdog
fighting injustice of some sort, material that is a staple of traditional story-
telling. Martin McLoone even argues that the cinematic deficit is “the
result of the conventions of mainstream cinema itself, the generic require-
ments that are the basis of all narrative cinema and which are particularly
relevant to the thriller format” (McLoone 2008: 196). A hero that must
overcome seemingly insurmountable odds is certainly a necessary require-
ment for the thriller genre of film and—as exemplified by the
 1 INTRODUCTION 15

empire-rebellion dynamic in one of Hollywood’s most successful fran-

chises, Star Wars—the narrative of the Irish rebel fighting the British
Empire can be understood to be better suited to this model of
storytelling.
Due to the potential for not just drama but action and inevitably lead-
ing to some films being exploitative in nature, paramilitaries have naturally
been the focus for most filmmakers depicting the conflict. It is important
therefore to note that—like their representation on screen—loyalist and
republican paramilitaries differ in many ways and that the different nature
of both has also been considered as an explanation for the cinematic defi-
cit. McKittrick explains:

In movie terms everyone knows the IRA, but many in Hollywood and else-
where know little or nothing about loyalism. Outsiders who take the trouble
to research the Protestant paramilitary undergrowth generally recoil from
what they find. They quickly discover that loyalists killed over a thousand
people, the majority of them uninvolved Catholic civilians, often in sectarian
assassinations. This is, to say the least, unpromising territory for a feature
film. (McKittrick 2008)

Furthermore, the nature of loyalist violence can be seen to cause loyal-

ist paramilitaries to be viewed differently. In their violent defence of the
state, loyalists were inclined to view all Catholics as co-conspirators in
undermining the state and therefore legitimate targets. Conversely, despite
carrying out insurgent operations against the state and, in the process
producing acts of violence, republicans can nevertheless be perceived as
fighting the state in a legitimate war. Put simply, whilst loyalists, republi-
cans and the state committed what most people would consider atrocities,
it could be argued that violence by republicans falls more easily into a
cinematic narrative of resistance against a powerful and violent state.
It is true that at least a general assumption exists—particularly among
filmmakers—that loyalist violence is more consistently indiscriminate and
that paramilitaries of the unionist variety are nothing more than hard men
and gangsters. Much of this understanding is brought about by the belief
that rather than simply carrying out politically motivated violence in the
manner of republicans, unionism can revel in the atrocities it commits. As
well as making some filmmakers recoil, the seeming villainy of loyalist
paramilitaries has also attracted a small number of filmmakers who wish to
explore this heinousness. Films about the notorious loyalist paramilitary
16 R. GALLAGHER

gang, The Shankill Butchers, who mutilated, tortured and killed random
Catholic civilians, are the most obvious example of this and will be explored
in detail later in this research. Regarding comparable atrocities carried out
by republicans and whilst acknowledging the exceptional nature of the
Shankill Butchers’ crimes, it could be argued that for all the crimes com-
mitted by republican paramilitaries there isn’t an example of such heinous-
ness on the republican side. Conor Cruise O’Brien, not a sympathiser to
the republican cause himself, when discussing the Shankill Butchers’ leader
Lenny Murphy, claimed that due to tighter discipline within the organisa-
tion and a greater interest in how they were being perceived by the public,
the Provisional IRA (Irish Republican Army) “never unleashed on society
anyone quite like Lenny Murphy” (Dillon 1990: xiii). Rather than rectify
the cinematic deficit, this focus on the unionist community’s most extreme
members naturally furthers unionism’s abject reputation.
This bias against loyalist paramilitaries could also be the result of a belief
in collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and the British state as being
the major transgression. Some filmmakers are inclined to strike up rather
than down, in part due to the anti-authoritarian nature of some filmmak-
ing traditions and in part due to a desire not to emulate anything that
could be conceived as state propaganda. Therefore, filmmakers can be
understood to be naturally intrigued by the idea of the revered British
state resorting to undemocratic and corrupt tactics to quell a rebellion and
wish to question how far up the political system responsibility for such
criminality and hypocrisy lies. Sympathy with paramilitaries implicit in
such collusion can naturally be understood to be unlikely with sympathy
for paramilitaries adversely affected by it to be more expected.
It is also important to remember that on-screen representations do not
exist in isolation and are influenced significantly by a multitude of sources.
Many identify the tabloid media as a key medium through which depic-
tions and understandings of unionists are consumed. Peter Shirlow argues
that the medium is a key driver in establishing a negative perception of
working-class loyalism which submerges signs of progressive change from
within the community (Shirlow 2012: 201). He explains, “It may be that
media-driven depictions are excessively generated but any mark upon
which the regressive and stunting forms of Loyalist activity remain will
never permit such accounts to evaporate” (Shirlow 2012: 202). Tony
Novosel also points out that it is important to challenge the traditional
representation of loyalists as “unthinking, mindless thugs who never had a
political thought”, a type of stereotype he claims is reinforced in
 1 INTRODUCTION 17

biographies of loyalist paramilitaries such as Johnny Adair (Mad Dog: The

Rise and Fall of Johnny Adair and ‘C’ Company) and Michael Stone (None
Shall Divide Us) (Novosel 2013: 3). He suggests that a failure to do so
only hinders our understanding of the history of paramilitarism and why
the conflict lasted so long (Novosel 2013: xix). McAuley also pays specific
attention to how the media in general understands working-class loyalism.
He finds that the portrayals “don’t even begin to encompass the loyalist
paramilitary experience, let alone identify those who seek to express differ-
ent visions of loyalism in the political or civic arena” (McAuley 2016: 4).
He also argues that the term “loyalist” is increasingly used by the media as
shorthand for all that is bad about unionism and that contemporary jour-
nalism is focused on either those within loyalism with seeming sociopathic
tendencies or those who express a visceral, irrational and sectarian world-
view (McAuley 2016: 3). In 2015, Baker published a report for the Office
of First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland on the
media representation of loyalism. In it, he discusses the potential conse-
quences of this lamentable public portrayal and claims they include a “bias
against understanding the politics of Northern Ireland generally, as well as
those of unionism and loyalism specifically; poor community self-esteem
and alienation; and a hindrance to cross-community dialogue” (Baker
2015b: 1).
This book focuses on the period from the 1980s onwards as before this
only several films released in cinemas featured identifiable unionist charac-
ters. These include a 1956 British film called Jacqueline (Ward Baker,
1956) and a 1974 Canadian film called A Quiet Day in Belfast (Bessada,
1974). In Jacqueline, a film about a Belfast labourer in the shipyards whose
daughter helps him find work after he loses his job, the Queen’s corona-
tion is celebrated merrily with a street party in Belfast. In the ironically
titled, A Quiet Day in Belfast, a film partly about a romance between a
local Catholic girl and a British soldier, loyalist paramilitaries blow up a
Catholic Church before they themselves are blown up by an IRA bomb.
However, even in these films there are only subtle and fleeting depictions
of identifiably unionist characters.
One reason for the lack of representation before the 1980s was because
the Northern Ireland government impacted filmmaking significantly
through a conscious strategy focused on incentivising what was called a
“Go Ahead Ulster” vision for screen depictions of Northern Ireland
(Christie et al. 2009: 45). The unionist government had an intentional
policy of driving public attention away from social and inter-communal
18 R. GALLAGHER

strife and towards a more positive vision of the region as a harmonious,

modern economy and society (Ibid.). As a result, any allusion to Northern
Ireland’s warring factions was rare in British cinema and any acknowledg-
ment of sectarian hostility was suppressed by the state as much as possible.
McIntosh describes the state at this time as officially being a “united and
homogenous protestant state” whilst unofficially being a diverse state
“made up of catholics as well as a variety of protestant sects, and full of
tension and disharmony” (McIntosh 1999: 3).
Notable examples of the state discouraging, refusing to support and
censoring film productions it did not like include the production of two of
the most famous films set in Northern Ireland, the 1936 film Ourselves
Alone (Hurst, 1936) and the 1947 film, Odd Man Out. Brian Desmond
Hurst’s Ourselves Alone, a film which depicts a love story set against the
backdrop of the Irish War of Independence, was banned in Northern
Ireland under the Civil Authorities Act 1922 despite being passed for pub-
lic exhibition by the British Board of Film Classification. The Northern
Ireland government also refused a formal request for government co-­
operation for Carol Reed’s Odd Man Out, a film where James Mason plays
the leader of an unnamed Republican organisation. Subsequently, despite
being set in Belfast, the bulk of the film had to be filmed in London with
only several scenes shot in Belfast (Hill 2006: 125). Furthermore, indig-
enous film production in Northern Ireland was limited in the post-1945
period and policies of the British Film Institute, whose remit was to sup-
port film as a cultural practice and educational tool in Britain’s regions,
excluded Northern Ireland (Pettitt 2000: 40). In North American pro-
ductions that depicted the conflict in Ireland, unionism was largely omit-
ted as well during this time. This was perhaps due to the likelihood that it
would complicate the dominant and simplistic narrative extolled in
Hollywood films that the conflict in Ireland was solely a feud between
Ireland and Britain.
This book aims to explain why this cinematic deficit regarding union-
ism being depicted less frequently and favourably than Irish nationalism
exists whilst offering a comprehensive analysis of unionist representation
in fiction film. The focus is on feature-length fictions films that received a
cinematic release; so short films, documentaries and television films are
not covered in detail. The reason for these exclusions is due to it being
beyond the scope of the project given that a comprehensive analysis of
depictions is the intention. Much of the research carried out previously has
focused on Protestantism, or at least used the term ‘Protestant’ to describe
 1 INTRODUCTION 19

the ethnic group in Northern Ireland that are generally Protestant, union-
ist and British. Whilst acknowledging that the terms are often used inter-
changeably and that any attempt to completely omit one risks ignoring the
nuanced composition of the identity, in using the term ‘Northern Irish
unionist’, the intention is for the research to be concerned with the politi-
cal and cultural, rather than religious affiliation. Unionist or British signi-
fiers will be necessary for depictions to be considered for inclusion.
Therefore, the research will be interested in characters from Northern
Ireland that communicate a desire to maintain the union with Great
Britain either through dialogue or through engagement in politics, para-
militarism, unionist and British traditions or expressions of cultural iden-
tity. Protestant signifiers alone are not enough for characters and themes
to be considered. For that matter, what some might consider another indi-
cator of unionism, being a member of the security services during the
Troubles, is also not considered a signifier. The work will also seek to
establish whether Irish cinema is following an established tradition of rep-
resentation. Many of the fiction films included are literary adaptations
and depictions found in the source materials must be a factor. Beyond this,
though, is there another rationale for the type of representation chosen?

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———. 2015b. Traditions in Transition: A report for the Office of the First
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Bennett, Ronan. 1998. Don’t Mention the War. In: Rethinking Northern Ireland.
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Brown, Terence. 1985. The Whole Protestant Community: The Making of a
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Connelly, Mark. 2012. The IRA on Film and Television. North Carolina: McFarland
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Hill, John. 1987. Images of Violence. In: Cinema and Ireland. Kent: Biddles.
———. 2006. Cinema and Northern Ireland. London: British Film Institute.
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Leather, Stephen. 1992. The Chinaman. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

McAuley, James. 2016. Very British Rebels? The Culture and Politics of Ulster
Loyalism. London: Bloomsbury.
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Ireland. 2nd ed. Richmond, BC: Steveston Press.
———. 2006. The Repression of communities: Visual Representations of
Northern Ireland during the Thatcher Years. In: Fires were Started: British
Cinema and Thatcherism. London: Wallflower Press.
McIntosh, Gillian. 1999. The Force of Culture: Unionist Identities in Twentieth
Century Ireland. Cork: Cork University Press.
McKay, Susan. 2005. Northern Protestants: An Unsettled People. 2nd ed. Belfast:
Blackstaff Press.
McKittrick, David. 2008. Why are all the Troubles’ films about republicans? Belfast
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opinion/why-­are-­all-­the-­troubles-­films-­about-­republicans-­28453966.html.
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the ceasefire of 1994. In: Relocating Britishness. Manchester: Manchester
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———. 2008. Film, Media and Popular Culture in Ireland: Cityscapes, Landscapes,
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British identity is dwindling’. The Guardian. Accessed 5 October 2022 https://
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Pettitt, Lance. 2000. Screening Ireland: Film and television representation.
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Shirlow, Peter. 2012. The End of Ulster Loyalism? Manchester: Manchester
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 CHAPTER 2

An Emergence of Unionist Representation

in British Cinema

Between 1981 and 1985 a proliferation of depictions of unionists emerged

in British cinema. This chapter will seek to explain the reasons such an
increase in unionist representation occurred whilst specifically analysing
the type of depictions found in five British films: Maeve (Murphy and
Davies, 1981), Angel (Jordan, 1982), Ascendancy (Bennett, 1982), Cal
(O’Connor, 1984) and No Surrender (Smith, 1985). Some of the reasons
for the increase in unionist representation at this time include the materi-
alisation of the New Irish Cinema movement and the formation of both
the Irish Film Board in Ireland and Film Four productions in the United
Kingdom. The Irish republican hunger strikes can also be identified as
having a significant influence on depictions.
Although television productions are not the primary interest of this
research, it is important to note that other screen depictions of unionists
emerged around this time. Too Late To Talk To Billy (Seed, 1982) was
broadcast on television in 1982 and is an adaptation of a Graham Reid
play about a troubled working-class family living on the loyalist Donegall
Road in Belfast. It is also the first of three films known as the “Billy
Trilogy” to feature in the BBC’s Play For Today anthology drama series.
In 1984, Mike Leigh’s Four Days in July (Leigh, 1984) is another notable
BBC television film that depicted unionists. The film is about the daily
lives of two couples on either side of Northern Ireland’s sectarian divide as
they both expect their first child.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 21

Switzerland AG 2023
R. Gallagher, Screening Ulster,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23436-1_2
22 R. GALLAGHER

The Hunger Strikes

By 1981, Northern Ireland had already experienced a decade of conflict.
Due to the scale of the violence, the British Army had been deployed in
the region since 1969. The Northern Ireland state had existed—however
problematically—for almost 60 years and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP)
had solely been the government of the region for the entirety of the state’s
existence. During this period of unionist control, the nationalist minority
was significantly discriminated against in terms of jobs, housing and voting
rights (Farrell 1980: 87).
The year, 1981, would be dominated by an Irish Republican hunger
strike that would garner worldwide media attention. The hunger strike
was the culmination of a five-year protest by Irish republican prisoners in
the Maze and Armagh prisons. The dispute between prisoners and the
British government began when special category status, also referred to as
political status, for paramilitary prisoners was withdrawn in 1976 leading
initially to a “blanket protest”. This would escalate to a “no wash protest”
in 1978 where prisoners refused to wash and covered the walls of their
cells with excrement. In 1980 the dispute would escalate again when pris-
oners went on a hunger strike that was called off after 53 days. However,
the second hunger strike in 1981 would prompt media attention from
around the world due to one of the hunger strikers, Bobby Sands, being
elected during the strike as a Member of the British Parliament. The pro-
test was not called off until after ten hunger strikers had died, including
Sands, whose funeral was attended by 100,000 people. According to Jack
Holland, up until this point, there was a pro-British consensus in the US
media; the hunger strike, Sands’ election and the British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher’s hard-line approach saw the tide begin to turn and an
endpoint for a period of unquestioning of the British position by the US
media (Holland 1999: 11).

Maeve (1981)
Maeve (Murphy and Davies, 1981) is a film funded by a £73,000 grant
from the British Film Institute with £10,000 in funding coming from the
Republic of Ireland’s national broadcaster, Radió Teilifis Éireann (RTÉ).
The film was shot in Belfast with the writer and co-director, Pat Murphy,
calling it the first feature-length film entirely shot and cast in the city
(Sullivan 1999). The film follows the eponymous character Maeve Sweeney
 2 AN EMERGENCE OF UNIONIST REPRESENTATION IN BRITISH CINEMA 23

(Mary Jackson) and uses an experimental narrative structure to explore

the relationship between feminism and Irish republicanism; the film posits
that Irish nationalist women are oppressed by their own community just as
that community is oppressed by the dominant unionist community. Lance
Pettitt explains that the film uses “cinema to critique Irish nationalist his-
tory, republican politics in particular, and practice ‘herstory’ through the
medium of film” (Pettitt 2020: 209).
Maeve is of the New Irish Cinema period, defined by Martin McLoone
as lasting from 1977–1988 when a younger generation of Irish filmmakers
such as Murphy, Bob Quinn, Neil Jordan and Joe Comerford sought to
challenge the typical sanitised portrayals of Ireland that had existed and
instead offer a more realistic depiction. Harvey O’Brien describes this in
the context of a wider European movement as being a determination
amongst “independent indigenous filmmakers everywhere that a National
cinema should express not so much a single, coherent view of the nation
as express the informed personal perspectives of artists with something to
say about their own society” (O’Brien 2006: 12). O’Brien acknowledges
that by the mid-1970s this attitude had begun to ferment in Ireland. He
states, “By the early 1980s, it was evident that Irish film had found its feet
as a means of serious self-scrutiny and a challenge to expectations of Irish
identity” (Ibid.). This move towards an exploration of societal problems,
national identity and a more realistic portrayal of the nation made it pos-
sible therefore for unionism to be included and acknowledged.
Maeve’s story is told in flashbacks with her return to Belfast and her
encounters provoking memories of the past. In one of these flashbacks,
Maeve, as a schoolgirl, walks home through a housing estate that is identi-
fied as a unionist area by a large wooden arch bedecked in British and
Orange symbolism at the entrance. She passes a group of children playing
on the street and enters her home, which at this time in her life is seem-
ingly in this unionist area. She learns that her younger sister had been
punched and called a “Fenian bitch” by someone called “the wee
McQuoid”. Recognising this person as one of the children outside that
she had walked past, Maeve runs out and seeks retribution for her sister.
Stephen Baker finds the “wee McQuoid” to be the progeny of a union
seen elsewhere in the film when the older Maeve watches a young woman,
who he describes as presumably Maeve’s Protestant counterpart, having
loveless, passionless sex with a British soldier in uniform. He describes the
scene as “an allegory for a deficient, dispassionate union between ulster
24 R. GALLAGHER

loyalism and Britain” (Baker 2015: 86). Seen through this lens, the fol-
lowing sequence can be seen to also have an allegorical dimension.
Maeve strikes the boy with her hand and is then quickly restrained by
the other children. This allows the young McQuoid to grab a brick and
threaten Maeve by stating, “You better watch it wee doll. I know your
face.” Before walking off, he feigns to throw the brick at Maeve’s head.
This is not the end of the matter as McQuoid’s mother later knocks on the
Sweeneys’ front door. The family does not answer causing the McQuoid
matriarch to take it upon herself to go around the side of the house to the
back door, where windows mean Maeve and her family cannot hide from
her. This scene is made all the more tense by Maeve’s exclamation, “Jesus,
I can hear her coming round the back.” This is the first example of what
would become recurring themes in the film: the Sweeneys’ property not
being their own and unionist entitlement. The film cuts before the con-
frontation is seen and the only image of the supposedly threatening
McQuoid mother is a brief image of her through a frosted glass window
as the camera pans to signify that she was making her way around the side
of the house.
The problems facing the Sweeneys persist and reach a climax in the
sequence that follows, eventually leading to the family leaving the area.
Firstly, Maeve and her sister watch a marching band from a bedroom win-
dow and secondly, later that night the family is sitting on the sofa watching
the Twelfth celebrations on the television when a projectile is thrown
through their window. The playing of the traditional loyalist song, “The
Sash My Father Wore”, links these two scenes. Firstly, the marching band
outside Maeve’s home plays the song and then—without interruption—it
is also playing on the television later that night as highlights of the Twelfth
celebrations are broadcast. Without a break in the playing of the song, the
film implies that the music has never stopped and therefore neither does
the family’s feelings of alienation and intimidation. These feelings are also
expressed by the fact that the family watches these celebrations removed,
either through a window or on the television. What they watch is a cul-
tural identity that is not theirs, signalled by the fact that Maeve and her
sister are wearing nightgowns, clearly outsiders. Also, as portrayed by their
body language, at no point do the family seem to be enjoying what they
are watching, but rather are transfixed and contemplative. The broadcast-
ing of the Twelfth celebrations on television also suggests there is a sys-
temic nature to the problems that cause such alienation and intimidation.
In particular, the BBC’s role in fostering the promotion of Britishness is
 2 AN EMERGENCE OF UNIONIST REPRESENTATION IN BRITISH CINEMA 25

described by McLoone as having been particularly problematic in Northern

Ireland during the Troubles. He explains:

If the BBC […] was an important agency for promoting and sustaining a
consensus notion of ‘Britishness’ within the UK as a whole, this role was
considerably compromised in the divided community of the North, where
notions of ‘Britishness’ were at the centre of controversy and dispute.
(McLoone 1996: 3)

Later, an older Maeve walks into the living room of her house to find
the news is being broadcast on the radio. It features a speech by the
Reverend Ian Paisley who was a politician and Protestant religious leader
who founded both the right-wing political party, the DUP, and the funda-
mentalist Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster. From the mid-1960s, he led
and instigated loyalist opposition to the civil rights movement that advo-
cated equality of civil rights (Jordan 2018: 4). He opposed all attempts to
resolve the conflict through power sharing between unionists and nation-
alists and all attempts to involve the Republic of Ireland in the governing
of Northern Ireland. Paisley’s words are introduced by a newsreader with
a middle-class English accent which marks a distinct contrast from the
working-class Belfast accents generally heard in the film. Furthermore, the
newsreader appears to show deference to Paisley as he introduces him by
stating: “Mr. Paisley was in powerful form this morning, in an hour long
news conference where he discussed what he described as the anger and
frustration of many loyalists in Ulster. There was, he said, two options
open to them.” Paisley, himself, goes on to explain that one of the options
available to loyalists in Ulster is to “engage in a revolution in which there
would be bombing and killing and violence of the worst form”. The inclu-
sion of a speech where an English newsreader shows such deference to
Paisley by describing him as being in “powerful form”, at a time when he
is claiming armed insurrection is a viable option for his followers, is again
suggestive of the systemic nature of the problems facing Maeve’s family
and the nationalist community.
The most menacing depiction of loyalism identified in the film comes
in a scene where a young Maeve encounters a man, played by George
Shane. Maeve’s father (Mark Mulholland), working as a bread delivery
man, ventures into a unionist town and briefly leaves his daughter alone in
his van. Maeve realises she is being watched by a group of men on the
other side of the street, their position perhaps a metaphor for the fact that
26 R. GALLAGHER

they come from a different community than Maeve. One man makes his
way over and the threatening nature of his movement is accentuated. As
he approaches what Maeve sees and the composition of the frame becomes
increasingly dominated by the man’s dark figure and sullen face. The
themes of property not being the family’s own and unionist entitlement
can again be identified and emphasised by the cinematographic choices.
The man takes it upon himself to first knock loudly on the van’s window
and then open the passenger door without the slightest hint of an invite
from the young Maeve. Clearly intimidated, Maeve purposely looks the
opposite direction from the man towards the shop where her father is
located. A Union flag waving in the wind can be seen as this encounter
progresses, the image reflecting off the van’s windscreen; this specific use
of mise-en-scène and cinematography is a specific filmic device that pro-
vides some subtle exposition as to why this area is so hostile for Maeve and
her father, whilst also heightening the sense of danger that the young girl
faces. The man continues to intimidate Maeve by asking: “Did you drive
up from the Free State today?” Maeve quietly answers by stating that she
is from Belfast, this in turn causes the man to question why then do they
have ‘free state’ license plates. After explaining that the van was bought in
Cork and reaffirming that she is from Belfast the man returns to trying to
ascertain the girl’s cultural identity by asking whereabouts in Belfast she’s
from. A knowing Maeve doesn’t respond to this question and the man
continues, “Well you’ll not sell your Free State cakes here I’ll tell you.”
Maeve’s father coming out of the shop interrupts their encounter. Before
leaving, he returns the cakes to the back of the van ignoring the threaten-
ing figure of the man who had made his way next to him.
The man appears again at the end of the film when an older Maeve visits
the Giant’s Causeway. This time, however, he mysteriously has an English
accent. The reason for this specific characteristic is unclear; whether or not
the character is also the same character from the earlier scene in the loyalist
town is therefore also unclear. The one thing that is for certain is that the
same actor, George Shane, plays the character Maeve interacts with on
both occasions. Like her previous encounter, Maeve is clearly not enam-
oured with the man. Whilst sitting on one of the Causeways’ interlocking
basalt columns at the edge of the coastline, again without invitation, he
approaches her from behind and sits next to her. As well as the previous
theme of property not being one’s own, this perhaps acts as a microcosm
for Northern Ireland in that both communities must traverse the same
finite territory. He proclaims without being prompted and in what seems
 2 AN EMERGENCE OF UNIONIST REPRESENTATION IN BRITISH CINEMA 27

a staged theatrical tone, “Nothing between you and the North Pole.”
Maeve ignores him, her inaction causing him to cross behind her and posi-
tion himself on a column that enables him to get even closer and look
down into her face. “Do you know there’s over 38,000 stones in this
causeway? I counted them and there’s only one stone that’s octagonal. All
the rest have six or seven sides,” he continues. Maeve asks him which is the
octagonal one and with his theatrical tone becoming even more pro-
nounced, he responds, “I’ve forgotten now. I put a mark on it so I’d
remember. But the ocean washed the mark away.”
Jessica Scarlatta comments on this particular piece of dialogue, “The
peacoated stranger’s performative grandeur, implying the futility of mark-
ing and claiming space in the face of (mother) nature, becomes somewhat
ironic when moments later his unionist sympathies are revealed” (Scarlatta
2013: 63). These sympathies are revealed as he bellows theatrically into
the sea an incoherent series of passages from poetry and the King James
Bible. The most obvious example of his unionist sympathies being on dis-
play comes when he includes the anti-home rule cry “Ulster will fight and
Ulster will be right” in his ramblings. This term is most associated with
Lord Randolph Churchill who, in 1911, told a large crowd of gathered
unionists in the outskirts of Belfast to prepare to take on the government
if a Home Rule Bill was passed (McIntosh 1999: 159). The irony that
Scarlatta alludes to is that the futility of marking the rock can be under-
stood as a metaphor for the futility of unionism’s claiming of territory that
is continuously being consumed. The location where this event occurs is
also significant, the man stands at the very tip of the north coast of Ireland;
this is perhaps an allegory for Protestantism in Ireland, a people gradually
pushed to the margins and defiantly holding on to what territory they can.
The New Irish Cinema movement and a valuing of national self-­scrutiny
in indigenous film productions meant that unionism could no longer be
ignored by Irish cinema. However, Maeve is only ever interested in union-
ism’s relationship with nationalism; the film is still typical of cinema about
the Troubles, in that it is still predominantly about nationalism and from
a nationalist perspective. Furthermore, by postulating that unionism is the
ultimate oppressor the film never attempts to humanise the unionists it
depicts. One unionist critic in particular who did not react warmly to the
film was Alexander Walker; writing in the London-based Evening Standard
in September 1981, Walker didn’t find the film’s feminist critique of
nationalist Ireland a redeemable quality and instead described the film as
28 R. GALLAGHER

“a tedious celluloid about the Republican cause in Ulster” (Liddy

2020: 304).
In 1994, Murphy attempts to explain why unionism isn’t explored
more in the film and why a similar film from a unionist perspective hasn’t
been made by highlighting the personal as a reason for filmmaking.

People often question the lack of Unionism in Maeve, and I think this lack
occurs because of my background. I don't come out of a Unionist back-
ground. I think the more important question we should ask is why aren't
Unionist women making film? A number of people have tried to address
this, and they have suggested that Republican women have a different rela-
tionship to the state […] rather than attack Maeve because it doesn't address
Unionism, we need to wonder why we have not seen films by Unionist
women. Because Unionist work was not censored or prohibited, we have to
ask, in a curious rather than a critical way, why we don't see film by Unionist
women. (Sullivan 1999)

Although Murphy’s question is an interesting one and her concern is

valid, her framing of the issue of agency solely in feminist terms somewhat
ignores the fact that there is both a lack of unionists making films in gen-
eral and a lack of women making films about the Troubles in general.
Nevertheless, Murphy’s questioning of why unionist women do not make
films is similar to the explanation often proffered as to why such a cine-
matic deficit seemingly exists in films about Northern Ireland and that is
that those from the unionist community don’t tend to become filmmak-
ers. Indeed, writing in 1998, Brian McIlroy, seemingly using the term
‘Roman Catholics’ as shorthand for someone being from the Irish nation-
alist community, explains, “The vast majority of Irish films and videos
made on the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’ have been conceived and exe-
cuted by Roman Catholics” (McIlroy 2001: 146).

Angel (1982)
The next production to depict unionism was Angel (Jordan, 1982), a film
released in cinemas the following year (in some territories, such as the
United States, the film is called Danny Boy). It was produced by English
filmmaker, John Boorman, and was the directorial debut of one of Ireland’s
most acclaimed filmmakers, Neil Jordan. The director’s filmography
includes several films that deal with the Northern Irish Troubles; most
 2 AN EMERGENCE OF UNIONIST REPRESENTATION IN BRITISH CINEMA 29

notably, The Crying Game (Jordan, 1992) won the BAFTA Award for Best
British Film and an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Jordan
is also considered an integral part of the aforementioned New Irish Cinema
movement, and Angel can be seen to challenge typical portrayals of Ireland
and embody much of the movement’s ideals.
Angel was funded by sources within both the Republic of Ireland and
the United Kingdom. In the Republic of Ireland, it received £100,000
from the newly formed Irish Film Board, now known as Screen Ireland,
the state’s development agency for Irish cinema. The board was set up in
1980 after a sustained period of agitation from indigenous Irish filmmak-
ers who had joined together to form the Association of Independent
Producers to lobby for the government to aid film production; accord-
ingly, the funding of Angel was seen as a significant victory. In the United
Kingdom, the film also received £400,000 in funding by the newly formed
Film Four productions; a British production company owned by the tele-
vision network Channel 4 and set up in 1982, the same year as Angel’s
release. Channel 4 had a remit to innovate and take bold creative risks;
similarly, Film Four had a remit to be committed to making indigenous
British productions, especially original screenplays on contemporary social
and political issues (Hill 1999: 56). However, unlike many of the other
films produced at this time by those involved in the New Irish Cinema
movement and by Film Four, Jordan’s film does not follow a naturalist
approach, but instead follows in the vein of Carol Reed’s Odd Man Out
(Reed, 1949) by almost entirely removing the action from its socio-­
political context. Some critics, such as John Hill, claim that this a-­historical
approach also follows in the tradition of films failing to question whether
the violence of the Troubles is politically motivated. Hill explains, “By
attempting to show all violence as the same, irrespective of political con-
text or motivation, the film defies the possibility of any political explana-
tion, and, indeed, any political solution, to the conflicts which are
occurring” (Hill 1987: 180).
Like Murphy and Davies’ film, Angel’s depiction of unionists is also
often overlooked by audiences. This could be the result of the loyalist
paramilitary gang depicted in the film being misunderstood to be a repub-
lican paramilitary gang, and specifically the IRA. This possible misunder-
standing is perhaps a product of the omnipresence of the IRA in films and
literature about Ireland and the creative choice to remove the action from
its socio-political context. As a result, the film does not make the deter-
mining of the gang’s political affiliation easy, nevertheless there are subtle
30 R. GALLAGHER

signifiers that can be identified. The most obvious sign that the gang is
loyalist comes when one of the killer’s girlfriends calls him a ‘Prod’ (a
derogatory term for a Protestant). In the scene, the gang member tells the
women, “I like you Beth, you’re my soul.” Her response to this is to jok-
ingly respond, “You’re a Prod. They don’t have souls.” McIlroy explains
that the gang’s ringleader being found at the end of the film to be a police-
man further strengthens the claim that the gang is loyalist. Seemingly
using “Protestant” as shorthand for being from the unionist community
again, McIlroy states, “Some critics argue that the specifics of religion/
allegiance are unclear; but, a knowledgeable viewer knows that because
the policeman is the ring-leader of the gang, this is almost certainly a
Protestant paramilitary group” (McIlroy 2006: 82).
However, some commentators believe that the gang’s political affilia-
tion is unclear and even state that the decision to remove the action from
the socio-political context is central to the film’s intentions. For example,
Ruth Barton explains, “The film never identifies the paramilitaries or
makes it clear whether their allegiance is to republicanism or loyalism – all,
it is suggested, are the same” (Barton 2004: 157). Looking at the film
from this perspective, Angel can be seen to condemn both sides equally.
However, the evidence in support of the gang being loyalist cannot be
ignored and Hill even claims that the film draws loosely on real-life mur-
ders carried out by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF):

Drawing loosely on the murders of members of the Miami Showband by the

Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in 1975, Neil Jordan’s Angel also shows loy-
alist paramilitaries, even though the film’s vagueness about social and politi-
cal detail means that it is commonly regarded as referring to IRA violence.
(Hill 2006: 196)

The 1975 event that Hill refers to has come to be known as the Miami
Showband massacre. The Miami Showband were one of Ireland’s most
popular cabaret acts and were travelling home to Dublin after a perfor-
mance in Banbridge when they were stopped by what they thought was a
British Army checkpoint. Armed members of the British Army’s Ulster
Defence Regiment (UDR) and the UVF ordered the band members to
line up along the roadside. Attempting to hide a bomb on the minibus,
two of the gunmen were blown up when it went off prematurely (BBC
2020). The other gunmen then opened fire on the band members, killing
three and wounding two. To what extent the event influenced the film is
 2 AN EMERGENCE OF UNIONIST REPRESENTATION IN BRITISH CINEMA 31

difficult to determine; however, the decision to centre the film on an elab-

orately dressed showband touring the same region as the real-life Miami
Showband certainly brings the event to mind. An early piece of dialogue
that includes the line “Are they paying us danger money?” may also be a
subtle reminder of the event. The gang in the film is also just as ruthless as
the UVF members who carried out the attack and the film depicts state
collusion with loyalist paramilitaries.
Their ruthlessness is apparent from the gang’s first appearance in the
film when they pull up outside the ballroom in a car after everyone has
gone home for the night except Danny (Stephen Rea), a sax player who
acts as the film’s protagonist, a deaf-mute girl (Veronica Quilligan) he has
befriended and with whom he has possibly had sex, and his band’s man-
ager (Peter Caffrey). Out of view of the gunmen, Danny and the deaf-­
mute girl watch as the gang forcefully drag the band’s manager out of the
club. Armed and with their faces hidden behind balaclavas and tights that
are stretched over their heads, the gang’s intentions soon become clear
when they accuse the band manager of ‘making payments’; this refers to
giving protection money to the IRA and therefore disadvantaging the loy-
alist gunmen. The band manager pleads that he “was told to” before being
quickly shot, first in the gut and then in the head as he lies prone on the
ground. The deaf-mute girl, perhaps not sure as to what has occurred,
walks into view of the gunmen. Seeing her, one of the gang asks, “Who
the fuck is she?” Another responds, “It doesn’t matter who she is”, before
giving approval for her to be brutally killed as well. The gang then takes
off in the car hastily before a bomb explodes and Danny runs towards the
girl’s body. Identifying one gunman as having a clubfoot, the rest of the
film follows a vengeful Danny as he hunts down and kills the members of
the gang individually.
The first gang member he tracks down is the man with the clubfoot
(Gerard McSorley). However, unlike the other members, Danny kills him
before any justification for his actions are articulated. Upon searching his
home, Danny does not find anything other than one of the guns used in
the murders; his home does not offer any indications as to his political or
religious affiliation, although IRA graffiti daubed next to his front door
may suggest that oppression by his local community could be one moti-
vating factor for his actions. Danny then tracks the next gang member,
George (Tony Rohr), down to his coastal home. He searches the man’s
house before killing him but there is again no indicator of political or reli-
gious affiliation. However, this time, the character is able to articulate
32 R. GALLAGHER

some justification for his actions. Referring to the band manager he says,
“He was making payments, protection money. He was vermin. What do
you do with vermin?” When asked about the girl he denies that it was he
who killed her and explains, “I don’t know about her. She just appeared.”
Marking a contrast from the weak and panicked George, the last gang
member (Ian McElhinney) is much more malevolent and a character more
in keeping with the monstrous perception of loyalist paramilitaries rein-
forced in later films. This is a perception which Baker describes as being
representative of a section of the loyalist community who understands
their isolation from the world, knows “themselves as pariahs and have
come to wear that pariahdom as a badge of principled defiance” (Baker
2004: 80). This is exemplified as the man slaps his girlfriend when she
pleads with the gun-wielding Danny—who has surprised them by hiding
in the backseat of their car—to let her go and claims she “wasn’t going to
see him anymore anyway”. Hinting at the state collusion Danny would
find out about at the end of the film and reflecting how cinema portrays
collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and the security services as the
ultimate transgression, the man goes on to explain that there is someone
bigger that Danny wants. He is then asked how he did what he did at the
ballroom and responds coldly, “It’s not that hard when you put your mind
to it.” Becoming increasingly manic, he begins to encourage Danny to
shoot him as he drives faster. Perhaps referring both to the current situa-
tion and the night at the ballroom—before Danny shoots him—he
explains, “It’s easy, you just pull the trigger.”
Danny then discovers that his new manager is “making payments” to a
man who is ostensibly a member of the IRA. Now a cold-blooded killer
himself, Danny doesn’t hesitate to kill the man as well. This swift execu-
tion, without drawing a distinction between him and the loyalist gunmen,
has also resulted in many commentators reading the film as being equally
critical of both violent republicanism and loyalism. The reaction by Dee,
(Honor Heffernan) Danny’s fellow band member and love interest, also
supports the claim that the film ultimately renounces all violence. She sees
Danny now as being a different person and someone who makes her “feel
unclean”. She also tells him at this time that “they were looking for you …
them like you, only in uniform”. This suggests that she sees the police as
equally responsible for the violence and ushers in the film’s final scene,
where the Police Detective, Bonner (Donal McCann), is revealed as the
loyalist gang’s ringleader. Bonner is even heard to mimic the loyalist gun-
men at the beginning of the film as he refers to Danny as a “Bad … bad
 2 AN EMERGENCE OF UNIONIST REPRESENTATION IN BRITISH CINEMA 33

boy”. Hill’s claim that nothing is said about the violence depicted being
politically motivated would perhaps be unfair were it not for Bonner’s
partner, Detective Bloom’s interjection. Bloom (Ray McAnally) kills
Bonner just as he is about to shoot Danny and thus, the film denies any
systemic nature to security service corruption or collusion just as quickly
as the question is raised. Reinforcing this idea that the security services are
ultimately good, the film ends with Bloom stating, “I didn’t know.”
In future depictions of loyalist paramilitaries their political allegiance
would be more clearly identifiable, but the ruthlessness of the gunmen in
the film would be a type of depiction that would dominate screen repre-
sentations of loyalist paramilitaries, and unionism in general, in the years
that followed. The film is also the first to depict loyalist paramilitary collu-
sion with state security services, the type of which occurred in the Miami
Showband killings, and hints at collusion being the ultimate transgression
without depicting any systemic nature to the corruption.

Ascendancy (1983)
Edward Bennett’s Ascendancy (Bennett, 1983) is a period drama set after
the First World War that deals with unionist resistance to Home Rule and
was released in cinemas in 1983. Like Maeve, the film was funded by the
British Film Institute, however, partly owing to the involvement of Film
Four, the film’s budget was significantly higher. The film was specifically
financed through the state-funded BFI Production Fund that was man-
aged by the British Film Institute and principally charged with backing
work by new and uncommercial filmmakers (Brooke 2014). The film is in
a similar vein to other ‘Big House’ Irish films that comment on Irish
nationalism and use the Big House itself to embody colonial rule in
Ireland, such as The Dawning (Knight, 1988) and Fools of Fortune
(O’Connor, 1990).1 However, the fact that the film had such social and
political resonance upon its release, its inclusion of depictions of Orangeism
throughout and a portrayal of unionist leader, Edward Carson, means
Ascendancy engages much more directly with unionist themes and union-
ist cultural identity.

1
The ‘Big House’ refers to the large homes of the ascendancy in Ireland and is a term often
used to describe a genre of Irish fiction, particularly literature from the Irish gothic tradition,
concerned with the anxieties of the Protestant landowning class in their decline, from the late
eighteenth century.
34 R. GALLAGHER

The plot revolves around Connie (Julie Covington), a Protestant

woman and member of the British landowning aristocracy who lives in a
stately home in the North of Ireland and before partition. Traumatised by
her brother’s death at the Battle of the Somme during the First World
War, Connie is partially paralysed, a psychosomatic symptom that causes
her to be unable to raise her right arm. This trauma also causes her to be
unable to process the violence that goes on around her and eventually
leads to her muteness and refusal to eat. Her descent into madness is also
triggered by an encounter with a British soldier, Lt. Ryder (Ian Charleson),
whose reluctance to fight in Ireland makes her realise how sheltered she is
to the realities of the Irish situation. Undeniably a meditation on Britain’s
guilt over the tormented history of Ireland and an illustration of Ashis
Nandy’s argument that colonialism was debilitating for the coloniser as
well as for the colonised, Connie’s hunger striking at the film’s finale could
be understood as her allying with the struggle for Irish Independence
from Britain (Nandy 1988: 2). This understanding is supported by the
fact that hunger strikes have been used throughout history by Irish repub-
licanism as a means of political confrontation and to seek social redress.
Furthermore, at the time of the release of Bennett’s film in 1983, Ireland
was still reeling from the deaths a few years earlier of ten republican pris-
oners on hunger strike at the Maze prison. David McKittrick, referring to
the province of Ulster, explains, “The crisis plunged the province into one
of the worst convulsions it has experienced, putting the population
through communal trauma and laying the basis for a deadly cycle of
increased violence” (McKittrick 2006).
Connie’s muteness can be seen as an indicator of her political allegiance
as it represents another recurring concept in period dramas set in Ireland,
that of national trauma being manifest within an individual. In typical Irish
gothic fashion—a genre generally associated with the Anglican commu-
nity in Ireland and emanating from a crisis of identity from within the
community—the nation’s trauma is embodied within a disturbed woman,
Connie.2 Her muteness is understood as the national trauma she embodies
being so great and traumatic that it can never be articulated. In a
foretelling at the beginning of the film, Connie explains this unhealthy
ability to remember, but not vocalise when she states, “How long has it

2
Jarlath Killeen, in his work on this subject, describes one possible reason for the attrac-
tiveness of the Gothic for the Anglican community in Ireland is that it is a “genre peculiarly
obsessed with questions of identity” (Killeen 2014: 34).
 2 AN EMERGENCE OF UNIONIST REPRESENTATION IN BRITISH CINEMA 35

been? Three years? Four? One hundred? It makes no difference. I remem-

ber everything. I keep it safe inside me.”3
Although Northern Irish unionists may view themselves as being repre-
sented by ideas of Britishness in the generally patriotic ‘heritage films’
which have long been a staple of the British film industry, as previously
mentioned, unionists in Ireland have never been afforded the kind of por-
trayal enjoyed by other communities that identify as British. This would
become particularly noticeable when comparing more contemporary
depictions of unionism with typical ‘heritage films’. However, being a
period drama itself, it is also interesting to consider how this theme is
identifiable in Ascendancy. Highlighting the difference in films set in
Ireland and Britain, Barton states:

One of the most striking differences between the British and Irish of the Big
House/period dramas is their representation of history and historical events.
In the British films, most of them set in England, history functions as little
more than background information and is seldom if ever problematised.
The Irish films are about history and its legacy. The bearers of this legacy as
well as its victims are the genre’s central, often hysterical female characters.
(Barton 2004: 135)

In Ascendancy, unionism and aristocracy are intrinsically linked to

Orangeism, and therefore presented at its most problematic, raising ques-
tions about colonialism and its present-day impact rarely explored in heri-
tage films set in England. This is first apparent in the scene where a young
man practices twirling a baton in the garden of the house underneath a
Union flag hanging from a flagpole. The twirling of the baton is an act
traditionally carried out by the person who leads the loyalist band proces-
sion. Diegetic loyalist band music accompanies the twirling and the per-
son’s skill at the craft draws the attention of the admiring nurse (Susan
Engel) who watches from a window and proclaims, “That’s a fine sight,
isn’t it?” Less impressed, Connie solemnly remarks “Is it that time of year
already?” A little later, Connie’s antipathy to unionist culture is more obvi-
ously displayed when her English father, Wintour (John Phillips), asks her
what she thinks whilst proudly wearing the traditional Orange sash and
looking at his reflection in a mirror.

3
This theme of a national guilt being the personal burden of young female members of the
ascendancy and leading to muteness is also explored in Pat O’Connor’s Fools of Fortune
(O’Connor, 1990).
36 R. GALLAGHER

Connie: You look absolutely ridiculous.

Wintour: I do wish you’d take more of an interest in the outside world, Connie.
Connie: Why should I take an interest in grown men marching up and down like
children?
Wintour: Because it’s part of our tradition.
Connie: Waving flags isn’t a tradition; it’s just a silly habit.

Connie goes on to claim that Wintour doesn’t really care for this union-
ist tradition, instead believing his support is born out of economic neces-
sity. This is a claim supported moments later as he is seen sitting at a
demonstration against the Home Rule Bill, a bill passed by Parliament
intended to provide self-government for Ireland within the United
Kingdom, immediately to the right of what is presumably the unionist
political leader, Edward Carson (Liam O’Callaghan). Carson, a Dubliner,
held several positions in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom, led unionist
opposition to Home Rule and was instrumental in the creation of the
Northern Ireland state. A well-dressed and bushy eye-browed Carson tells
the working-class audience that have gathered to hear him:

These men that come forward posing as the friends of labour care no more
about labour than the man in the moon. The real insidious aim of their
propaganda is to bring disunity among our people, to force on us the same
bondage and slavery that we see being imposed in the rest of Ireland.

The crowd that has gathered respond warmly to the speech and enthu-
siastically yell the unionist slogan, “No Surrender”. The scene and the
sequence that follows reveal the Orange institution’s ability to unite work-
ers against left-wing elements to be a useful tool for Wintour to achieve his
goal of defeating a dockyard strike in order to secure a lucrative deal with
a group of German businessmen. This is a demonstration of a long-held
belief that the Orange Order is useful and even necessary for the establish-
ment to keep a fractious Protestant people of many different denomina-
tions together in the face of perceived Catholic unity. It is also a belief that
is often understood by unionists themselves to be condescending and rein-
forcing a perception that working-class Orange Order members are gener-
ally just pawns of the establishment. The fact that the man who is seen to
benefit from a united and influential Orange Order is English and of the
landowning ascendancy takes on even more significance in this regard.
Carson’s words can also be seen to incite violence as, in what is perhaps a
 2 AN EMERGENCE OF UNIONIST REPRESENTATION IN BRITISH CINEMA 37

reference to a sustained period of conflict in the city between 1920 and

1922 known as the “Belfast Pogrom”, sectarian trouble erupts between
the nationalist and unionist dockworkers after Carson’s speech.4
Wintour later seeks a career in politics and this pursuit also reveals his
true motivation for comprehensively opposing Home Rule to be eco-
nomic in nature. When the proposition to stand for election is first put to
him at a discussion at the dinner table in his home, Wintour makes it clear
that he is a businessman, not a politician. Another man, presumably from
the UUP, suggests that political unionism also shares this motivation when
he responds by insisting, “That’s exactly the kind of men we need.” The
calculated and sectarian nature of the Northern Ireland state’s creation is
also discussed at this time. One of the men at the table explains to Wintour
that it would be best not to seek to include the nine counties of Ulster in
the new state, due to the large Catholic population in three of the coun-
ties: Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan.

Man 1: Look at the arithmetic; with six counties we can hold the line. With nine,
they’ll out number us in a couple of generations.
Man 2: At the rate they breed!
Man 1: The point is those six have to be secure.
Wintour: Frankly, it’s Belfast that concerns me.

Wintour’s interest in whatever keeps Belfast, the economic hub of

Ireland at the time and the city where he owns a business that relies heavily
on trade with Britain, in the United Kingdom further demonstrates an
economic motivation. The fact that the six county state of Northern
Ireland did materialise means the film can be seen to suggest that what is
true of Wintour’s motivations is also true of those who determined the
state should exist. Other arguments for the state’s existence such as the
possible discrimination of Protestants in the largely Catholic, Irish state
are presumably deemed revisionist in nature and not explored in the film.
Later in the film, after being elected to Northern Ireland’s first parliament,
Wintour is reserved and contemplative as he speaks to Connie whilst look-
ing out her bedroom window at a gathered crowd of singing supporters.
They can be heard singing the hymn associated with Edward Carson’s

4
For more on this period, see Robert Lynch’s “The People’s Protectors? The Irish
Republican Army and the ‘Belfast Pogrom,’ 1920-1922”.
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