Themes in Irish films: Part 2 The Family

The family is a common theme in Irish films. Irish families are often shown to be dysfunctional sometimes with some sort of abuse involved.
Another common element in these films is the fact that one parent (most usually the father) is missing from the family. Martin McLoone notes in his book Irish Film: The Emergence of a Contemporary Cinema that "a reaccuring motif is the sense that the irish family is incomplete, with either the mother or the father missing from the drama with disastrous results in terms of generational conflict."
Often the mother is shown as being the responsible parent who is resourceful and leads the family, such as in 1999's Angela's Ashes. Where the father is seen as a no-good drunk, with the mother acting as the dependable parent.
In another example, Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot, we are given an example of a father who is emotionally distant and a mother who is very caring and maternal in the form of Brenda Fricker.
This can be again seen, albeit in a more comical sense, in 1999's Agnes Browne. In the opening scene we see an example of a mother who is eager to support her family despite her husbands passing, in this case looking for Government support on the morning of her husbands death.