Cillian Murphy truly shot himself to mega stardom in 2023 when he won the Best Actor Oscar for his magisterial performance in Oppenheimer. Between that role and his bloodthirsty performance as Tommy Shelby in the BBC’s Peaky Blinders, Murphy is finally getting the acclaim that his larger, more noticeable roles have deserved. However, in the actor’s back catalogue, there is a plethora of films and performances that sowed the seeds of his future successes and thus, warrant more attention from film fans nowadays. His turns in Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto, John Crowley’s Intermission, and Danny Boyle’s Sunshine in particular are equal parts heartwarming, heart-breaking, and deep in their emotional intensity. There is one more particular film by a director from the British Isles that features an intense, star-making performance from our Irish actor: The Wind That Shakes the Barley.
The 2006 film by director-screenwriter team Ken Loach and Paul Laverty tells the story of two Irish brothers who join the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence in the struggle for independence from the United Kingdom. Murphy stars as Damien O’Donovan alongside fellow Irishman Páraic Delaney as his brother, Teddy. The film explores the relationship the two men have with each other and with their fledgling country, the relationships often mirroring one another in the film itself. The title of the film is taken from a 19th-century ballad about the previous 1798 rebellion in Ireland, and is featured in the film in a particularly haunting funeral scene. Loach’s film ended up winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and is, to date, the highest-grossing film of the director’s career.
What Is ‘The Wind That Shakes the Barley’ About?
The Wind That Shakes the Barley is set between 1919 and 1923 during the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. The film portrays the struggle of Irish republicans against British rule, leading to the establishment of the Irish Free State. The internal conflict that follows highlights the divisions among Irish revolutionaries over the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which ended the war but partitioned Ireland into the Republic of Ireland, an independent state, and Northern Ireland, a remaining member of the United Kingdom. This partition remains to this day. This historical period is marked by intense political and social upheaval, setting the stage for a poignant exploration of loyalty, sacrifice, and the complexities of revolutionary movements. The Wind That Shakes the Barley, although a work of historical fiction, is one of the more underrated historical films produced in the last twenty years. Its stellar cast is one of many reasons for that.
In this world, Murphy plays Damien O’Donovan, a medical student and younger brother of Teddy (Delaney), who is the leader of the local chapter of the revolutionary Irish Republican Army. Damien plans to move off to London to study, but after witnessing some local atrocities at the hands of the Black and Tans, Damien feels like he should stay home and help his brother in the fight for independence. Their group imprisons spies and gets themselves imprisoned in violent little donnybrooks until they hear news of a ceasefire. The film is almost split into two parts, covering the War of Independence and the Irish Civil War, sparked by the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
