Jimmy’s Hall

Director: Ken Loach

7 November 2023

See

Him: Returning home to Ireland after ten years in exile in America, Jimmy Gralton (Barry Ward) is encouraged by his neighbours and a younger generation like Marie (Aisling Franciosi) to reopen the community hall that made him a firebrand and stoked division during the Irish civil war. 

Her: Jimmy’s Hall is a fiction film directed by the British director Ken Loach, that loosely follows the life story of the Irish political and social activist James Gralton - the only Irishman ever deported from Ireland.

The plot focuses on the reopening of the James Connolly community hall following the conclusion of the Irish Civil War, with aim to educate and provide opportunity to socialise for the local population of the town of Effrinagh. Supported by a group of local volunteers, James Grafton organised dancing, singing, painting and many other creative and educational workshops which instantly become very popular amongst the youth craving to self-express and socialise. The reopening of the hall was not so well received by the local conservatives - representatives of the Republican Party and especially - by the local priest father Sheridan who saw the Hall and activities happening within its walls as a cover for communist propaganda and direct threat to the dominating and indisputable role of the church as the main educational and cultural institution.

Think

Him: What is a room, four walls, a ceiling and floor. Shelter from the elements, private property. A hall is room adjacent, a meeting place, a public space to gather. To come together and dance, learn Gaelic music and literature, boxing and commemorate special occasions. Jimmy builds a hall on his property near Cork but it stands as a monument not to him but to socialist ideals of equality and self determination, where people who don’t have much else in the way of wealth, education or institutional development can better themselves. In Ireland this is thought to be the domain of the Church. So Jimmy clashes with Father Sheridan (Jim Norton) who says for the church to support the hall the deed will need to be signed over. Jimmy accuses the priest of only listening when Parishioners are on their knees and subservient. Jimmy is labeled a communist an an agitator. And as the young hot priest Father Seamus (Andrew Scott) warns, makes a martyr of a good man. 

Her: After watching the movie for the first time, I had too many questions and so decided to rewatch it. But that helped to understand only some of the things I was not sure about. Ken Loach portrayed Gralton more аs a social activist than political and therefore, most of the accusations addressed to him by the priest and the local republicans seemed very unreasonable and retrograde. The only few times in which Jimmy was politically involved made it feel like he was rather forced to speak on behalf of his party. Despite this depiction, according to the wikipedia article, Gralton’s views were quite radical, so much that even some of the leaders of the IRA were not willing to oppose his deportation order. Perceptions aside, there are some facts not mentioned in the film that constitute that James Gralton was much more politically involved than the undeniably likeable and charismatic character portrayed by Barry Ward.

In 2014 the film was premiered at the Cannes FF. A year after an apology campaign was launched to exonerate Grafton and officially apologies to his family. It seems like Jimmy Grafton was to free and progressive for his time and being a communist was just a part of being progressive.

Feel

Him: It reminds me of the halls that mark celebrations; the monumental like first holy communions, milestone birthdays, wedding receptions. And the incremental, scout meeting, folkloric dance rehearsals, under age parties. Many were the province of the church. But what if we just wanted to come together without top down ideology to determine what we’re doing or how. It could be like Jimmy’s Hall. The term community is thrown around a lot and has come to mean subcultures. RSL and leagues clubs, ethnic club. But in Ken Loaches telling, it’s not a commercial proposition. The coming together of people who want to be more than a minority and stick with their own. In Australia I’m thinking of the resurgence of bowlo’s, old and new regenerating the municipality with each generation. And being richer for it. 

Her: Ken Loach assumes some knowledge of modern Ireland’s history and provokes curiosity if you don’t possess it. It as much the story of James Grafton as the story of the early independent Republic of Ireland itself. Th redistribution of power, Church loosing its followers, the new generation that was born during or after the Civil war, inherently feeling the change of times. The priest is performed brilliantly by Jim Norton, whose sky blue eyes make it very hard to despise him as a person. He listens to the jazz records which Jimmy left behind for him, and seemingly appreciates the extraordinary vocals of the afroamercian female singer. But the church is an institution with huge power and approving anything new and alien means loosing it. Which father Sheridan is not prepared to do. His conflict with Jimmy is an embodiment of the never ending and unresolvable conflict between old and new, progressive and conservative. Somewhere deep inside, these two respect each other for standing firm by their truth but they will never agree.