Ghosts of a Nation

Loss, identity and empty nationalism in The Banshees of Inisherin

Abstract

This article psychoanalyses the film The Banshees of Inisherin, arguing that the film provokes connections between nationalism, melancholia and identity in the context of Ireland and its history. Fundamentally, I elaborate on the relationship between loss and melancholia in the singular context, with a particular focus on the character of Colm and his act of self-mutilation, and the wider cultural implications of melancholia as a social phenomenon within the Irish post-colonial context. While the film is subversive and satirical, this very satire points to something critical at the heart of debates about national identity. I argue that the signifiers of a romantic and idealistic Ireland are subverted within the film in such a way that the spectator is disturbed within the frame of their own habitual identifications, and the very question of what constitutes Irishness comes to the fore as a ghostly apparition.  Through the prism of the film, the article also questions the nature of national identity as a form of collective imagining and the ways in which cinema can contribute to a re-imagining and destabilisation of tropes and stereotypes pertinent to Ireland.