How the Irish are represented in films

Many people, myself included, living in Ireland are unhappy about Irish people are represented in mainstream cinema.


This blog entry is refering to how people who are portrayed to be Irish, and not necessarily irish actors, are used in films. I will be examining irish actors in a later blog entry.

I have noticed that there seems to be a minority of roles that Irish people can be portrayed as in mainstream cinema.

For example, Irish people have been represented quite heavily as violent, drunken and, to be honest, quite often plain crazy. We are portrayed as roguish, renegade sort of characters.

It is easy to link our violent cinema image to our turbulent past and, in particular with The Troubles in the North in the 1970s. It is also because of the large amount, and notorious reputation, of Irish-American gangs that are operating (or have been operating) in America throughout the years.


This violence has allowed the Irish to be portrayed as IRA, bomb-making terrorists by mainstream cinema. There are many cases of these, for example: The Devil's Own (1997), The Jackal (1997) and Blown Away (1994) along with many others.

Irish immigrants' violent past in New York, was also well documented in Martin Scorcese's 2002 epic drama film; The Gangs of New York.

I think the representation of Irish people being crazy, or at least a bit wired, can be blamed, almost entirely on David O'Hara. Despite the fact that David O'Hara is actually a Scottish actor, he has been continueously cast in Irish roles. He played an Irishman in films such as The Departed and The Matchmaker.

David O'Hara has always given a quirky performance. But if we look at his performance in films such as Bravheart (above) where he was cast as a crazy Irish outlaw, or his renegade role in Some Mothers Son where he played an unusual IRA terrorist, I can begin to see why we got the typecast.

There has been an unusual move in the last few years, to have Irish men as the male leads in romantic comedies.

These are mainly to cater for American audiences who may have a exotic view of Irish people and way of life. This can be seen in 2007's P.S. I love you, which shows two Irish men which American actress Hillary Swank has feeling for.

Ironically, neither Irish role was filled with Irish actors. The roles instead went to Gerard Butler, who is Scottish, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who is American.

Another example of such an Irish role can be seen in the more recent Leap Year. This again has an Irish male lead, this time played by Mattew Goode, ironically an English actor.

The Irish Times' Donald Clarke, described the film "offensive, reactionary, patrionising filth" and said "Hollywood is incapable of seeing the Irish as anything but IRA men or twinkly rural imbeciles."

Donald Clarke may be on to something there, especially when you consider the "Oirish" characters that are in most mainstream movies.