Once Upon a Time in Ireland, the true story...

Declan Lynch’s Diary

LAST week in the Diary there was a short piece about Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, and what a great ending it was given by Tarantino. Working a little out of character, he declined the opportunity to depict the notorious murders of Sharon Tate and others by members of the Manson Family, instead giving us the fairytale ending suggested in the title by sending the killers to the wrong house — wrong for them at least.

I imagine his thinking went something like this: everybody of a certain age “knows” what happened that night, it is lodged deeply in some dark place in the psyche, they have “seen” that movie. A creative thing for the film-maker to do is not simply to stage some hideous reconstruction, but to use the power of the movies to dream a little, to engage with the accidental nature of things, to present us with a final vision of Sharon Tate that she might have wanted.

I found it beautiful, even weirdly romantic from a director not known for such inclinations. Yet I had a heated discussion with a 21year old film fan who hated it. And I think I know why.

If you’ve carried Charles Manson and his “family” around in your head since you were a child, this final scene is bound to have a different meaning for you, than for most 21-year-olds. Whereas “anyone affected by the issues” is usually provided with a number to ring at the end of the show, with this one, some of us were already “affected” long before we entered the cinema... which brings us automatically to Sinn Fein, and the way the polls are suggesting that they have strong support among “the young people” — which in politics is probably anyone below the age of 35.

It is a fascinating thing, to see people who are normally of sound mind, the sort of people I would usually regard as kindred spirits, happily tweeting away about Sinn Fein as a party of the left to which they can comfortably relate.

For some of us, these usually perceptive people are missing something here — missing a few things, but one thing in particular, the fact that if you were around when Sinn Fein was styling itself the Provisional IRA, you will probably never get it out of your head that for a long time this was our Manson Family, on the grand scale. That this was the spectacularly horrible force that darkened our days, and haunted our dreams.

But apparently that’s all over now, even for some otherwise progressive folk — again it is remarkable to hear people who are in no doubt about the evil of nationalism when they see it in almost any other country in the world, seemingly not noticing anything potentially wrong with it in Ireland.

Which is not Sinn Fein’s fault, they are not exactly hiding the fact that they are a nationalist movement. Though they are of course driven by some of the same “patriotic” energies as the Brexiteers and the MAGA brigade — they would be hiding that bit.

In their desire to make Ireland great again, they would tend towards the left on certain issues — though I would suggest that if you imagine Sinn Fein as a petrol station, it is the nationalism that is coming out of the pumps, while the other issues are the sweets and cigs you might pick up in the shop.

So they are not a

“normal” party, if indeed there is any such thing, certainly not to some of us who knew them when they were out there in Death Valley, as it were. But even as she complains about their exclusion from some TV debate, in spite of their surge in the polls, Mary Lou McDonald must know that being abnormal can work in their favour.

Much of the media last year indulged their abstentionism from Westminster, in ways that would be unimaginable for any “normal” party. At a time when a few votes really could have made a difference in the Brexit game, you could hear journalists actually making the case on Sinn Fein’s behalf, that it was against their republican beliefs, and everybody knew that when they were elected.

For the sake of some old IRA eejitry about swearing oaths to the Crown and so forth, they sat it out, when they really could have done something for Ireland. And they were excused by most commentators, even by those enlightened folks who rightly despised Brexit and all who were enabling it.

So yes, at some level even these unlikely sympathisers know that this is not just some party of the left, that something else is driving Sinn Fein.

But it’s a bit like Once

Upon a Time in Hollywood — they can’t change what happened, but they can make it feel different, spin it into something else, with a bit of imagination.

There could be different ending, one in which republicans say that their years as our Manson gang were wrong, all wrong.

But Quentin Tarantino will not be along to write that ending. They have to do it themselves.

‘SF are driven by same energies as Brexiteers and the MAGA brigade’