Two films show the stains from our past

Being Irish means having so much to be proud of. The nation isn’t just an economy. We’re entitled to bask in our individual share of reflected glory from brilliant citizens and national achievements.

Pride may be one of the deadly sins but in a vital sense it’s good for us. A nation, just like an individual, can’t have self-esteem if there’s no pride. “What have you done to-day, to make you feel proud?” asks Heather Small’s pop song. It has been adopted by many organisations as a sort of ‘anthem’.

It’s good, for instance, for young people to work hard and to be proud of their sporting and academic achievements.

Ireland is a wonderful country. Just think of the literary geniuses our tiny island has produced.

Think of George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, John Millington Synge, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, William Butler Yeats, Patrick Kavanagh, Louis MacNeice, Sean O’Casey, Brendan Behan, Seamus Heaney and many, many more.

Think of the Land of Saints and Scholars that produced the Book of Kells. Think of how poor Ireland has punched far above its weight in humanitarian relief around the world. Think of Ireland’s contribution to peace abroad, often contrasting favourably with Britain’s imperialistic adventures.

The only problem is that if we’re entitled to be proud of these achievements we also need to accept out share of shame for the things we should be ashamed of.

Last week two new films appeared, reminding us of things we should be embarrassed about.

“Philomena” is the true life scandal of an ‘illegitimate’ baby sold to adoptive parents by Irish nuns in the 1960s. Political journalist, Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan) helps the mother, now living in England, to search for the son so cruelly taken from her decades earlier. It’s moving and, at times, funny.

Despite the injustice done to Philomena Lee (Judi Dench), she remains a forgiving, dignified, patriotic, and entertaining lady. She rises above her tormentors. She’s the heroine of the story. Judi Dench plays Philomena with commutate ease and subtlety.

It’s a rich irony that the religious who set out to shame her for having a baby outside marriage end up themselves being shamed for their judgemental inhumanity and for selling her baby. (Although at least one of the older nuns refuses to feel any shame.)

Then there was Darragh McIntyre’s powerful and also shaming exposé about the IRA’s policy of ‘disappearing’ people in the 1970s. It was a meticulously researched documentary. Even by the debased standards of war a policy of secret killing combined with deliberately spreading misinformation in the form of rumours, is unjustified and unjustifiable, to coin a phrase. It’s another stain on our past.

In a sense the questions, raised by former comrades, about Gerry Adams’s truthfulness are a distraction. Questions about an individual’s integrity pale into insignificance compared with the cruelty of killing a mother of ten children aged between six and 16. Their father had previously died from cancer. They were left to fend for themselves. The neighbours and even the local priest were unsympathetic. Jean McConville’s ‘crime’ was to have placed a pillow under the head of a dying English soldier.

Is this what British rule reduced Irish people to? We need to feel ashamed.