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There is only one way to appease a ghost. You must do the thing it asks you. The ghosts of a nation sometimes ask very big things; and they must be appeased, whatever the cost.
The Banshees of Inisherin is a haunted film with a ghost that must be appeased. What exactly this ghost is is a hard and complex question, but the answer begins with an examination of the theme of loss and melancholia on the island of Inisherin. While the film may be somewhat of a tragic and absurdist comedy, the narrative is built upon the pain of conflict, the loss of friendship, the ties of love and hate and the existential despair of living with or without community. In this article, I argue that The Banshees of Inisherin subverts stereotypical conceptions of Irishness, what it is that symbolises Ireland, and alludes to an identity that is pivoted upon loss and unacknowledged mourning, the shadow side of the Irish nation. This unacknowledged mourning relates in part to Ireland’s transition from being a country under the yoke of colonialism to a post-colonial nation.
I focus on three key mechanisms or plot points that work in this subversion of national identity and that prevent the viewer from identifying with any heroic figure or taking up a comfortable nationalistic position: the role of landscape and the satire of romanticised signifiers of Ireland; the background presence and non-centrality of the Civil War in the lives of the characters; and an interpretation of Colm’s self-mutilation in cutting off his fingers as a form of self-hatred induced by melancholia. While this article can only be a sketch of these components comprising the fabric of loss and mourning within the film, the premise of my argument is that through the presence of melancholic signifiers and the exposure of a somewhat empty nationalism, unacknowledged losses and ambivalence within the Irish psyche regarding the history of colonialism can be approached or at least imagined.
This imagining takes