A Sense of Loss

In this documentary, director Marcel Ophuls explores the multifaceted and violent situation in Northern Ireland, a country bitterly divided by religion, where no one is safe from grievous loss and meaningless death. Ophuls interviews a cross-section of Irish citizens, who describe their thoughts and experiences about the problems between the Catholics, who feel harassed and denied opportunities, and the Protestants, many of whom fear being ruled by the doctrines of the Catholic Church if the country secedes from Great Britain. The film shows that the two factions are further divided within themselves over issues of union with Britain vs. the Irish Republic; the desire for a theocratic vs. a socialist state; and the questions of whether to assume extremist or moderate views or take a liberal vs. conservative stance. Some of those interviewed make a point that complicated economic and political issues of joining the European Economic Community further divide people, while making strange bedfellows of some who would otherwise be at odds. The film begins by showing scenes from the 1972 New York St. Patrick's Day Parade, where only the occasional banner protesting the British Army's involvement in Northern Ireland alludes to that country's troubles. According to an Irish-American spectator interviewed by Ophuls, Northern Ireland is more segregated than the American South, and right-wing arms of both Catholics and Protestants have taken control. In Belfast, a 1971 Christmas Day television broadcast reports that the police, in the spirit of the holiday, have chosen to ignore an unlawful, seven-mile-long march in protest of internment without trial of Catholic agitators in the Long Kesh prison camp. The reporter remarks on the way British soldiers stationed in Belfast celebrate the holiday, while Ophuls' footage shows, among other Christmas activities, a window display of fashion dolls dressed in combat apparel and bearing facial scars. Street scenes show soldiers in Army trucks riding through areas of desolation, poverty and buildings scrawled with anti-British graffiti. The news reports that British soldiers were ambushed by children carrying realistic-looking weapons that were discovered to be toys, and parents are asked to restrain their children from playing with guns in the street. In the Protestant area of Belfast, Ophuls and a family living on Shankill Road watch Queen Elizabeth's televised Christmas message. Although the family insists that Catholics in Northern Ireland have the same opportunities and comforts as Protestants, a Catholic man says he left a higher paying job on Shankill Road because he feared being lynched. While many Catholic interviewees claim that they suffer discrimination in housing and employment, a Protestant interviewee suggests that Catholics' larger families impose an economic disadvantage in a competitive society. A politically active, left-wing Catholic couple discuss how their three children have become used to their absences, which are due to his frequent arrests and her hospitalization from a British gunshot that partially paralyzed her. Various Catholics who are interviewed complain of false accusations, beatings and night-time arrests by the British Army, which also fails to protect the innocent from fire bombs and lynchings carried out by Protestant extremists. A mother claims that she would not discourage her son from joining the IRA, and the wife of a Long Kesh internee describes how the Army continues to raid her home twice a week. In their defense, military and police officers assert that houses are investigated when there is suspicious activity occurring and deny that men are deliberately beaten. Although an official admits that violence can occur when suspects resist arrest, he accuses the "propaganda machine" of publicizing it out of proportion. From the montage of interviews emerges a feeling of desperation that conditions young men to commit to fighting and dying for a British-free Ireland. A Catholic man talks about the significance of owning a handkerchief issued by Long Kesh, which is proof of having been there, where so many are imprisoned without a trial. Schoolteachers discuss how young children develop hate for the British Army and emulate IRA members rather then popular singers or footballers, carrying the tradition of violence into the next generation. Differences between the Official Irish Republican Army and the Provisional IRA are explored though interviews with various leaders of the two groups. According to the Official IRA's leader, Sam Dowling, they are finishing the revolution that the 1916 insurrection failed to accomplish, and will resort to violence when peaceful agitation is unsuccessful. A priest describes a growing myth of war and revolution, which he refuses to call "glorious," but reluctantly suggests may be "necessary" given the people's desperation. Although an Irish Labour Party leader quotes a nineteenth-century thinker who suggested that violence may be the only way of insuring a plea for moderation, he believes that that attitude has driven the Irish people farther apart. In the Republic of Ireland, a young woman's pub provides a place for Irish agitators to relax and sing patriotic songs, while in a Belfast record store, people purchase songs of freedom. Interviews with Bernadette Devlin, a Catholic who was elected to the Westminster Parliament at the age of twenty-one, are juxtaposed with three critics, two Unionists and Terence, Lord O'Neill, a former Northern Ireland Prime Minister who believe that a march in which she participated was instrumental in polarizing Catholics and Protestants. The Rev. Ian Paisley, a controversial Member of Parliament, is shown at his pulpit rallying his congregation against Catholics. While a radical Catholic political leader worries that the IRA is unwisely "flirting" with the preacher because of his vision of Irish independence and unification, a political writer facetiously suggests solving Ireland's problems by setting all churchmen aboard a raft in the Atlantic. In presenting Protestants' points of view, Ophuls interviews a member of the Ulster Defence Association, whose songs refer to Catholics as "scum" and who insists that his hatred is based on facts and not prejudice. Ophuls and his team also visit with a sympathetic Protestant family who claim that politicians aggravate the situation while failing to band people together, and claim that Catholics and Protestants can live together. A Protestant music teacher explains that Catholics are given no sense of protection from the Army, which should be inviting people to their side, instead of driving them through injustice to seek alliance with the IRA. William Craig, a Unionist politician, states that Catholics and Protestants of Ireland's two countries have more in common with each other than with Britain. Presenting historical footage from the 1950s, the film shows that southern politicians, wishing to maintain an Irish and English aristocracy, attempted to link the Labour party with Communism. In man-on-the-street interviews conducted in England, some people state that members of the IRA are "thugs," while others admit that the complicated situation has been poorly handled. Footage of a Protestant rally protesting unification and a Belfast Civil Rights rally are shown. Throughout the film, Ophuls returns to the senseless loss of four individuals who died because of the situation in Northern Ireland: He interviews young Protestant parents who still listen for the cries of their seventeen-month-old child who burned to death in a house bombing. Lovingly, a well-to-do Protestant widow describes her husband, who died trying to defuse a bomb. A grandmother Ophuls interviews sees the spirit of her son, an IRA Provisional, in her newborn grandson. The film ends with the story of a teenaged girl who was accidentally killed by an Army truck on her way home from a dance. Her mother states that the Army never contacted her about her daughter's death. The camera pans over the girl's empty room, decorated with a teddy bear and celebrity pictures, while one of her favorite songs is heard, a song suggesting that "we should get together."