Abstract
The chapter examines the representation of Irishness in Ken Loach’s film Jimmy’s Hall, which tells the story of a rural dance hall founded in the early 1930s by Jimmy Gralton—a returned Irish emigrant who, due to his leftist sympathies, was the first and so far the only Irish person to be deported from the Republic. Analysing the film in the context of Irish heritage cinema, Irish dance traditions and Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia, Ojrzyńska argues that much as the film underscores the importance of the cultural dissidence flourishing in Jimmy’s hall, it may also be considered as an instance of nostalgic romanticisation of the rebellious Irish spirit. In this respect, Loach follows certain popular cultural heritage policies that shaped twentieth-century mainstream Irish culture.
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Notes
- 1.
For a more nuanced analysis of the cultural significance of Irish dance, see the chapter “Irish Dance and its Transformations in the Twentieth Century” in my book ‘Dancing as if Language no Longer Existed’: Dance in Contemporary Irish Drama (Ojrzyńska 2015, pp. 17–55).
- 2.
The community hall was established by Gralton in 1921. It was closed after he was forced to leave Ireland shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War in 1922. Gralton reopened the venue upon his return to Ireland, 10 years later.
- 3.
The few historical sources examining the life of Jimmy Gralton, which served as Laverty’s and Loach’s source of inspiration and knowledge, are discussed by Ruth Barton in her article ‘Jimmy’s Hall, Irish Cinema and the Telling of History’ (2016).
- 4.
After it was built in 1922, the hall was used as the basis of a successful campaign to reinstate some evicted tenant farmers. Loach’s film shows that the venue retained this political role after it was reopened years later, upon Gralton’s return to Ireland in 1932.
- 5.
The film has received fairly positive—but much less enthusiastic—reviews than Loach’s The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006). Peter Bradshaw, for instance, calls Jimmy’s Hall ‘a watchable and thoughtful, if slightly pedagogic film’ (2014), but still praises it for ‘some wonderful moments, presented with great clarity and seriousness, absolutely unflavoured by irony or cynicism’ (ibid.). One of the most common objections voiced by the critics concerns the romantic presentation of the protagonist. Stephen Holden describes the film as ‘a likable period piece’ informed by ‘unswerving belief in old-fashioned populist heroes’ (2015), while Ann Hornaday compares it to ‘a history lesson wrapped in a love story, tied with a bow of lyrical, unapologetically idealism’ (2015). Yet, many other remarks made by the reviewers indicate that they yielded to the nostalgic charm of Jimmy’s Hall which, as Hornaday further notes, ‘shows what the pursuit of happiness can look like, and why it’s worth a revolution to protect it’ (ibid.).
- 6.
Usually offering the perspective of marginalised characters that occupy the bottom of the social ladder, such revisionist approaches can, for instance, be found in Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa and its film adaptation (1998), or in a number of contemporary films depicting the lives of women incarcerated in Magdalene Laundries (e.g. The Magdalene Sisters, by Peter Mullan [2002], Sinners by Aisling Walsh [2002] or Steve Humphries’s famous documentary Sex in a Cold Climate [1998]).
- 7.
Michael Flatley was the original lead dancer in Riverdance; he later pursued a solo career and became famous for his Irish dance shows Lord of the Dance, Feet of Flames and Celtic Tiger.
- 8.
- 9.
The Shim Sham, or the Shim Sham Shimmy is a classical American tap dance routine which was invented in the late 1920s.
- 10.
As Gibbons suggests in another article, the Red Scare was not a product of Irish isolationism, but rather originated in the USA; this is very ironic, taking into account the vehement opposition of the Irish Catholic Church to any foreign cultural influences (2014).
- 11.
A compulsory entry (e.g. to barracks or prison) is another possible option.
- 12.
Apart from the anecdote I have given in the opening paragraph, one could mention a number of local stories about Irish dance in which Irish peasants outwit a British soldier or a Catholic priest, who does not approve of Irish dance customs. Typically in such stories, passing by an Irish cottage where dances were held, a priest or a soldier watches the local people through the window. He can only see some rigid torsos moving around the kitchen and is thus fooled into believing that they are not dancing. See Williams (2010, p. 219) and Ojrzyńska (2015, p. 21).
- 13.
Set in 1934 in a small Irish village, Dreamland (2014) by Jim Nolan tells a similar story to the one depicted in Loach’s film. The play focuses on a returnee from America who decides to open a dance hall, modelled upon a popular amusement park at Coney Island in New York, and thus reinvigorate the local community with the rhythms of jazz music from the records he has brought to Ireland. The protagonist soon gets into conflict with the local Blueshirts and the whole undertaking results in failure, not bringing the expected sense of unity or freedom to the local community.
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Ojrzyńska, K. (2018). Dancing Against the Tide: Reconstructing Irish Cultural Identity in Ken Loach’s Jimmy’s Hall . In: Villar-Argáiz, P. (eds) Irishness on the Margins. New Directions in Irish and Irish American Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74567-1_4
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