Ken Loach's awardwinning film The Wind That Shakes the Barley is set in Ireland in the 1920s when volunteer guerrilla armies of land workers fought Britain's ruthless Black and Tan squads sent to block Ireland's bid for independence. To mark the launch of the film on DVD its screenwriter PAUL LAVERTY spoke at a recent Socialist Resistance meeting. Here is an edited version of his remarks. 'When you set out to write a historical film about Ireland the big problem you have is where to start. We could have done a period piece about some bureaucrat exporting food during the Famine. That would have been fascinating. It would have shown how empires and imperialism worked.
Eventually we settled on the flying columns (of guerrillas) for many reasons. It's obviously very dramatic but it also gave us a chance to try to examine ditterent voices and to be truthful to the times.
A thing that fascinated aoing ine research was now young these people were. When you read the history you find yourself asking what you'd have done in these circumstances. Manv of them were teenagers and if you were 30 you were an old man.
Tom Barry who led the flying columns was 30. In 1916 he was with the British Army in Iraq when he heard about the executions of the leaders of the Easter Rising in Dublin. You have to remember how inexperienced they were and that they were faced with these aramanc situanons and terrlble decisions about life and death.
Some people thought we'd made this film in relation to the Iragi war. We hadn't. What was amazing though, going through old documents and letters, was the fact that (Top) Paul Laverty (left) with SR's Alan Thornett: (above) Damien and Teddy meet up in a memorable frame from the movie even though the technology had changed the rhetoric was the same.
The psychology of occupation was very similar. In one scene we see what some young Black and Tans do. They were sent home to the dole after fighting in the First World War. They joined the Black and Tans and were sent over to Ireland, not always knowing what was going on. Many of them were racists and they found themselves being ambushed and shot at. They had no police skills and they were sent over there to terrorise.
A thing that makes the Irish peasantry different from that in other European countries is the very strong folk memory, a sense that there is a culture that was there before the incomers. Memory became a very powerful tool.
Michael Davitt, leader of the Land League, talked about his memories of his family being kicked off their farm in the 1850s and of how they went to Lancashire to work in the mills. He became very radical and an internationalist at a time when not many had a socialist perspecThere was a current there that was very important. apprentices. I here were masConnolly and had been involved in the 1913 Lockout when Dublin's tram drivers went on strike. The trams were owned by William Murphy who also had a newspaper which in 1916 called for Connolly's execution. So when Dan hears other young people saying that they are not just fighting to change the colour of the flag or the accent of the bosses, this rings true to him.
We show in the film that the railway workers did refuse to transport the British army and that they were threatened with immediate execution. The dockers too went on strike but overall, especially in relation to the treaty that partitioned Ireland, the labour movement lacked the leadership of someone like James Connolly.
After the treaty 70% of the fighters opposed it but the conservative middle class leadership filled the political gap and there was great lack of leadership within the union movement. Its leaders were very conservative. They didn't want to encourage anv. thing that would split the nationalist vote.
The right wing press didn't like The Wind that Shakes the Barley at all but and the boys tan the Brits at Cannes."
The film was very well received in Ireland. In Britain it was shown at our normal fifty or sixty screens. It's had an amazing reaction in France and in Spain where it's just opened it's had a great response too.
I'd have loved to have taken it to the non-nationalist areas in Belfast though I know that in nationalist areas it caused a lot of tears and debate and stirred up a lot of MenDomes