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The IRA on Film and Television: A Flistory Mark Connelly. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2012. 267 pages, $55.00.
For a clandestine organization with a small membership, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) has been the subject of numerous films produced in Ireland, Great Britain, and the United States; it has enjoyed an international appeal that reflects the influence wielded by the Irish diaspora. Depictions of the IRA in cinema have ranged from the heroic revolutionary to the criminal and killer. The array of films on the IRA is examined in considerable depth by Mark Connelly, who teaches literature and film at Milwaukee Area Technical College. One of the many strengths of this volume is the effort Connelly makes to place the cinematic history of the IRA within the broader context of Irish history and culture. Thus, Connelly begins his survey with The Troubles of 1916-1923, when the IRA was founded amid the Anglo-Irish War and Irish Civil War. This introductory chapter is followed by other chronological chapters which take the story through the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 leading to the official disbanding of the IRA, although rogue elements of the organization remain active. The second half of the book is a little more disjointed, with chapters on the classic IRA film texts The Informer (1935) and Odd Man Out (1947), depictions of the IRA on American soil and in other international settings, efforts to portray the IRA as a criminal organization, key themes and types in the IRA film, and finally, the role of the IRA in the period following the Good Friday Agreement. The organization of the volume detracts from any sustained analysis of how the IRA genre film might be employed to understand changes in Irish politics and culture. Nevertheless, Connelly provides readers with a good overview of recent Irish history and an almost encyclopedic...