The Centenary on Screen: Transnational Productions of the Easter Rising

Abstract

The Centenary on Screen:Transnational Productions of the Easter Rising Stephen Joyce (bio) In the run-up to 2016 there was a curious parallel between debates among historians about how to represent the Easter Rising and debates in film studies on ways to control representations of Ireland in a transnational medium. Historiographic debates demonstrated a strong appetite for narratives that eschewed nationalistic celebrations and looked beyond the Irish state to embrace fresh perspectives. The government's Advisory Group on Centenary Commemorations declared in its initial statement that the commemorative program should "not only address the key events in Ireland but also enhance the understanding of the wider United Kingdom, European, and world context in which they took place" (Advisory Group on Centenary Commemorations). This statement aligns with recent trends in Irish historical studies, with Enda Delaney and Fearghal McGarry asking in the introduction to a special issue on the Irish Revolution in a global context, "To what extent is it necessary to understand revolutionary change within a global as well as nation-state framework?" (6). Yet the field of Irish-media studies has long struggled with the converse problem, namely, that the dominant representations of Ireland on screen have traditionally come from global media giants based in the United States and the United Kingdom, with the Irish nation-state struggling to make any impact given the lack of resources available to compete with Hollywood. As Kevin Rockett, Luke Gibbons, and John Hill observed in their seminal Cinema and Ireland (1987), "Ireland's peripheral (and ex-colonial) status has not simply hampered the possibilities for a native film industry but, in its absence, has also made possible a set of cinematic representations which have tended to sustain a sense of cultural inferiority" (xi). Thus, rather than the historiographic challenge of trying to integrate global perspectives into national histories, Irish media have typically struggled [End Page 87] to inject national perspectives into a global medium. The commemorations of 1916 on screen thus represent an intriguing intersection of historiographic and media discourses regarding how and by whom narratives about Ireland should be constructed on screen. This article will examine these issues in relation to the three major new productions on the Easter Rising aired by Ireland's national broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) in the months before the centenary: the five-part drama series Rebellion from 3 to 31 January 2016, the three-part American documentary 1916: The Irish Rebellion from 10 to 24 February 2016, and finally the British-Irish co-production The Enemy Files on 21 March 2016. How should we interpret the significant participation of foreign media in defining a crucial moment in Ireland's national identity? Is this an example of Ireland's traditional inability to determine its own image on screen, or a demonstration of a new, more transnational approach to understanding Irish history? Before examining these questions and their underlying assumptions, I will first introduce the three productions in more detail. The first to be announced, on 31 March 2015, was the three-part documentary 1916: The Irish Rebellion, an initiative of the Keough-Naughton Institute of Irish Studies at Notre Dame. The first episode establishes the local context in Ireland as well as the Rising's connections with the United States and the Irish diaspora. The second looks at the events of Easter Week, while the final episode studies the Rising's impact both in Ireland and internationally. The documentary had a sizable budget of $3 million and a voiceover by Hollywood star Liam Neeson, and received screenings and broadcasts in over sixty countries worldwide. In many ways the documentary sought to present the definitive account of the Rising; reviewing it for the Irish Times, Bernice Harrison wrote, "Filmmaker Bríona Nic Dhiarmada appears to be declaring that while the TV schedules are cluttered with commemorative programming, all you need to know about the Rising is here." Although it was praised for its narrative sweep and excellent use of documentary footage, many Irish viewers felt that the documentary had little new to say. As Pat Stacey commented in a review for the Irish Independent, "For Irish viewers … our familiarity with the material meant this...