The Myth of The Wind that Shakes the Barley

At the risk of sounding callous, I would just like to point out that the Irish independence fighters, glorified for their “noble” sacrifices in the film, were and are little more than an unorganized rabble of terrorist insurgents, who murdered innocent civilians to advance their cause. The depiction of the quest for Irish independence in the film was greatly skewed, and the actions of the British military forces, stationed in Ireland, were taken completely out of context. The film would have viewers believe that the British military were little more than armed thugs, pillaging the countryside, without cause or provocation. In reality, the decision of British commanders to employ such brutal tactics was taken in response to the Easter Uprising of 1916, wherein Irishmen rebelled against the British Crown. Also, many of the atrocities, mistakenly attributed to the British military by the film, were, in actuality, carried out by Irish loyalist armies, not the regular Army of the United Kingdom. Additionally, this film only tells a small part of the Irish rebels’ story. Though honorably intentioned at the start of their campaign, the Irish rebellion soon began to target innocent men, women , and children both in Ireland, and in Great Britain. Over the course of the 20th century, and into the beginning of the 21st, the Irish Republican Army murdered over 2,500 civilians and military personnel in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and England, and caused a tremendous amount of damage with their bombing campaigns. The glorification of such inhuman actions is a disgrace and a dishonor to the memory of the thousands of innocent civilians and armed military personnel, brutally murdered over the last century by the IRA in their campaign of violence and terrorism.