The Wind That Shakes the Barley not bilingual, and demand a name in had decided no trains are carrying British the English language. We sympathise military personnel or equipment, and with the stubborn and brave Michel, Dan implements the policy (with relish). Transport and General Workers' Union sides. Later that evening he releases THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY Reviewed by John Meehan ur film is a little step in the British confronting their imperialist history. Maybe if we tell the truth about the past we can tell the truth about the present. ' Ken Loach The film opens with young men playing a vigorous game of hurling in West Cork; we are transported back in time to a beautiful part of rural Ireland in 1920. calm, one of the Everything seems hurlers is pissed off because the referee threatened to send him off. The players troop off to visit a friends' house - but then all is changed, brutally. A frenzied gang of heavily armed British soldiers charges down a path, lining the against a wall. Screaming players up abuse, threatening the women of the house, and ranting about the 'Defence of the Realm Act', the officer orders his squaddies to get the names and addresses of all present. The humiliating ritual starts; tension crackles, but is broken when one of the players answers, in Irish 'Micheál O Súilleabháin'. The barbaric soldiers are especially when he lands punches on one of his persecutors. His sister foresees the grave danger, as does the young medical student Damien. They helplessly tell their Black and Tan persecutors their friend's English language name (Michael O'Sullivan), and where he comes from, but it's no use. It's too late. The brutalised British soldiers take Micheal inside a barn, then torture and kill him. At Michel's wake, a woman sings, hauntingly, from 'The Wind that Shakes the Barley' Twas hard the mournful words to frame To break the ties that bound us Ah, but harder still to bear the shame Of foreign chains around us. There's no turning back - Teddy, Damien's brother, is busy organising resistance. We witness the coming together of the guerrilla fighters who dominate the rest of the film. Damien is still emigrating. He questions, sharply, whether small Irish forces have any chance against thousands of well- armed British troops. Micheál only died because he would not speak English. The medical student heads for the train station, as his friend Sinéad makes a crucial point: it's OK for him, but they can't all abandon their homesteads to get respectable new careers in London. As Damien buys his one-way ticket out of the war zone the workers' movement crosses his path, in the shape of Dan, a train-driver, veteran of the 1913 lock- out and follower of James Connolly. Black and Tans are trying to board the train but are warned by the alarmed and frightened stationmaster they cannot travel. The burly determined figure of Dan marches purposefully towards the squaddies and lays down the law. The Irish 24 REVIEW Directed by Ken Loach The soldiers savagely assault Dan and the stationmaster, but their terror is driven by impotent rage. No train-ride for the Tans - no drivers willing to have them on Damien witnesses the scene, takes it all in, returns home and joins up. The revolutionary struggle Drawn together by the War of Independence, the two characters Damien and Dan, focus on the bigger picture. Through them we see a red thread in the revolutionary struggle against foreign occupation, mass action and the power ordinary people achieve when they act collectively and democratically. Damien's guerrilla band, eleven strong, led by his brother Teddy, are captured and thrown into a cell. Damien immediately another prisoner, Dan the train driver. Damien reads a William Blake poem scrawled on the cell wall, put there by Dan. The medical student learns more of Connolly's brand of socialism from the train driver, who educated himself in Internment after the 1916 Rising. Damien's well-articulated principles the become the key factor rescuing guerrilla band from execution in a black and tan prison. Damien is hauled before a British officer for questioning; he's only defending a democratic mandate, if Britain had respected Sinn Féin's electoral victory in 1919, when the party won 73 out of 105 seats, he'd not be fighting the war. The fighters are not criminals, gangsters, or mindless thugs. The officer lets the medical student know how brutalised the soldiers have become because of living in the hell of world war trenches. He storms out of the interrogation room, in great agitation. Observing this, a young soldier switches
The Seed of counter Revolution most of the guerrillas, including Damian Dan and Teddy (who has been tortured by the Tans). Damien beyond guerrilla warfare in west Cork, and seek a workers' republic. Not for them cosmetic change, with red letterboxes painted green, and Irish flags replacing the hated Union Jack. The perspective is brilliantly brought to life when the guerrilla fighters witness a republican court: a woman judge hears An old impoverished woman, who speaks Irish and cannot make head or tail of the legal proceedings, is deeply in debt to a businessman, who is charging 500 percent interest. The judge rules against the gombeen-man, ordering him to pay compensation to his victim, and commits him to jail till the fine is paid. Seeds of counter-revolution This is a neat reversal of Michel's tragic fate - in the republican courtroom rules are bent to favour the downtrodden Irish speaker. Teddy, Damien's brother, intervenes along with some guerrilla colleagues to rescue the exploiter. The issue is thrashed out in the court, Damien and Dan side with the judge. Teddy gets his way: the businessman helps buy weapons to be used in the fight against the British Army. The seeds of the counter-revolution are identified within the revolution. Later, when the treaty is signed and the British Army leaves, Teddy and the local gombeen-man rule the roost. in a bitter tragic ending, leddy organises the execution of Damien. Such things really happened, no wonder the Civil War left generations of bitterness in its wake. Ken Loach's sympathies are with the anti- Treaty side, unlike Neil Jordan, who made Michael Collins. The two films, in very different ways, convey the magnificent story of Ireland's War of Independence and the following Civil War. But in Jordan's tale, it's hard to see why the anti-treaty side existed at all. When the Dail voted on the Anglo-Irish treaty only six of the 121 deputies were women - they all voted No. The state that emerged from the ruins of the Civil War was a priest-ridden, Catholic, sectarian 25 backwater; the bishops orchestrated a ruthless campaign of social repression, and women were driven backwards. At one point in the film a landlord is taken hostage and is then executed, his information had led the British army to Teddy's guerrilla band, and brought them to the brink of execution. The landlord exchanges heated words with Teddy - when someone knows death is near, they may as well throw caution to the wind, and tell the truth - diplomatic niceties are thrown out the window. This landlord warns Teddy and the other guerrillas they will only achieve 'a priest-ridden backwater'. Unfortunately, the prediction The Irish Film Board says that The Wind That Shakes The Barley, 'has become the highest-grossing independent Irish-made film at the box-office in Ireland', Irish Times, (August 8 2006). Ken Loach's film is brilliant, complex, a great multi-sided story. No wonder it won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. I hope he returns to Irish history with a future film.