Nine Great Movies About Ireland
My Left Food, Michael Collins, Ballad of Roan Inish and More
These films, whether pure fiction, memoirs or docudramas, shed light on Irish culture, history and politics. Award-winning actors and great scenery are bonuses.
There is no specific academic or critical genre called Movies About Ireland. There are, however, at least nine movies that lovers of Ireland and all things Irish will appreciate without the academic or critical commentary to go by. They can be divided into several categories: magical, marvelous, miraculous, miserable and magnetic. The movies are:
Magical
- The Ballad of Roan Inish (1993) follows a little girl on the northwest coast of Ireland as she finds her magical heritage. One of her ancestors married a “selkie,” a half-woman, half seal creature. Selkies, when seen by a man, could become the man’s bride if he succeeded in hiding her ‘seal skin.’ However, if the Selkie located her ‘seal skin,’ she could slip it on and return to the sea. The little girl follows her heritage back to the enchanted island, and experiences real-life magic.
- Into the West (1993) follows two small boys—the sons of a tinker, or Irish gypsy—as they reclaim a horse wrongfully taken from them, and travel with it across Ireland. The ending is truly magical, if a bit sad. The horse plays a major role, but it is not a typical kids’ movie.
Marvelous
- The Quiet Man (1952) stars John Wayne in a role outside his usual cowboy genre, but offering his signature tender/tough persona. He’s a Yank who returns to his ancestral Irish home, only to fall in love with the incredibly beautiful Maureen O’Hara. It offers love and natural beauty and brawls and engaging characters, and, of course, lots of John Wayne.
- Dancing at Lughnasa (1998) starred Meryl Streep and Sophie Thompson and offers insight into Irish life in the 1930s, after its independences, and abundant natural vistas.
Miraculous
- My Left Foot(1989) is a Daniel Day-Lewis tour de force. Lewis plays Christy Brown, an Irish writer thought to be mentally challenged until he was ten years old. In fact, he was simply challenged by cerebral palsy, which malady allowed him to move only his left foot. A comedy in every sense, eventually, he triumphs.
Miserable
- The Magdalene Sisters (2002) is a true story that depicts convents in Ireland, apparently as late as the 1980s, in which ‘fallen women’ were forced to live and work as virtual slaves in the nuns’ laundries. The ‘fallen women’ include a beautiful teenage orphan who winked at a boy through the schoolyard fence, a girl who repulsed a cousin’s amorous advances, and a young woman who had a child out of wedlock. The movie paints a portrait of institutionalized cruelty, as well as the triumph of the human spirit.
- Angela’s Ashes (1999) made author Frank McCourt famous. It is his tough, but generous, retelling of the life story of McCourt’s impoverished Irish boyhood and his mother’s struggles to soldier on in the face of poverty, illness and abandonment.
Magnetic
- Michael Collins (1996) is played by compelling, charismatic Liam Neeson. A true historical biopic, it is a road map of Irish independence.
- In the Name of the Father (1993) is another Daniel Day-Lewis tour de force. It chronicles the miscarriage of justice by the British establishment against real-life Gerry Conlon. It is a road map to the years of “The Troubles” in modern England and Ireland.
The copyright of the article Nine Great Movies About Ireland in Classic Films is owned by Laura Harrison McBride. Permission to republish Nine Great Movies About Ireland must be granted by the author in writing.
