"Jimmy’s Hall,” a film by Ken Loach, 2014
Loach is one of the best left-wing filmmakers in the world
and this film is an undiscovered gem, at least in the U.S. It tells the true story of James
Gralton, a member of one of the Revolutionary Workers Groups (RWG) in Ireland,
who returns to Ireland in 1932 from the U.S. after having been deported for
leading anti-eviction actions.
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| James Gralton Poster |
Gralton returns to his mother’s farm in a rural area, County Leitrim,
and goes about revitalizing a rural meeting hall near the farm. This hall is based on the real Pearse-Connolly hall in Effernagh. Leitrim is in the north of Ireland, next to Northern Ireland itself. Loach carefully weaves a story of cultural work
and social struggle into one. This is
rare, as most people think that politics and culture are in two distinct
boxes. Gralton proves otherwise. The majority of the community gets together to
rebuild the hall, which has fallen into disuse.
They begin holding classes in poetry, in boxing, in drawing, in Irish
dancing – and even jazz dancing.
Community dances are held with bands, as this hall seems to be the only
large place that people can meet.
The dead hand of the Irish Catholic Church is immediately
evident, as the local priest starts telling people not to go to the hall, as he
insists only the Church can handle education.
He threatens them with other-worldly condemnation and inveighs against
‘modern’ jazz and dancing. The film
starts to look like an Irish version of “Footloose.” Well, it gets darker than that. This is Ireland, after all. The folks at
the hall try to figure out a way to win over the priest by putting him on their
‘Board.’ The priest says yes, but only
if they put the deed in the name of the Church.
No way.
A young girl is whipped by her father for continuing to
visit the hall. Others are intimidated
from coming to the hall. Then leaders of
the RWG, which in 1933 helped form the Irish Communist Party, visit Jimmy to
tell him about an eviction. A large
family has been thrown out of their hovel by the local landlords. The RWG thinks that the country – in the
midst of the Depression – is ready to move against evictions. They want Gralton, who has a name, to make a
speech and spark that movement. They
point out that the nationalist IRA is noncommittal. Jimmy’s local co-thinkers get together to
decide if he should make the speech, as they know the repercussions. Dancing and jazz is one thing, but fighting
evictions is a whole ‘nother level in Ireland.
A classic confrontation ensues. The majority of people in the village and
surrounding areas march back to the abandoned house with the family, with Jimmy
and his buddies in the lead. Standing
against them is the priest, the landlords & rich people, and the police –
the whole local ruling elite. Guns are
drawn on both sides – and the local elite backs down, for now. Jimmy makes the speech and things start to
come apart.
The hall is burnt at night.
Jimmy is arrested, escapes with help, but is ultimately caught and
condemned to being deported again without trial. His love affair with a local women is once
again sundered. And the children of this
locality no longer have someone who can help them get beyond daily prayers.
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| What Remains of the Hall after being Burned. |
The RWG were supporters of Irish socialists like James
Connolly and James Larkin.
Even after the formal independence of the south in 1921,
which was won by an IRA guerrilla war against Britain lasting 3 years, struggle
continued. This film makes the obvious
point that the Irish national struggle against the landowners was not
over. The landlords were both Irish and
English. In other words it was all along both a national and a class
fight. So in essence this ‘revolution,’
like all others, is permanent – i.e. it can break the bounds of any stages that
are decreed by a reformist group like the IRA, which had led the national
struggle, or the later Irish CP itself.
Other films by Ken Loach that are worth watching concerning the
working class or politics: “Land
& Freedom,” (about the Spanish Civil war); “Riff Raff,” “My
Name is Joe,” “Bread & Roses,” (about the L.A. janitors
movement) “The Wind that Shakes the Barley,” (about Irish liberation
struggle…), “Family Life,” and “The Navigators.”
Red Frog
January 11, 2016
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