The Irish Republican Army Through Film, (1935-2014)

This thesis will explore the evolving relationship between terrorism and its visual representations and what these representations say about the reception of terrorism by audiences all over the world. This study examines thirty movies produced in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland between 1935 and 2014. These films portray different versions of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), an association founded in 1917 with the intent to end British control in Ireland and establish the Republic of Ireland. This thesis examines how concurrent events may have shaped the way filmmakers chose to portray the organization. For instance, if earlier films showed members who were loyal to the organization and to the cause, later productions depicted a group that had developed into a cult and had no regard for the lives of its members. Merely tools for accomplishing their goals, people of the IRA were no longer heroic during the Irish Troubles in the late 1960s