Imagining Ireland With Gabriel Byrne

The acclaimed actor discusses his role as Ireland’s first Cultural Ambassador, his experience as an emigrant, and his thoughts on the strong ties and the disconnects between Ireland and America.

And who is he as a result of his journey? He doesn’t say specifically, but he says a lot generally. Of leaving one’s homeland, he remarks, “It allows the artist a distance from where he lives and where he was born and the influences that shaped him, so that you can do a different version of looking back. So that, instead of yearning, you can look back over the other shoulder and do it more with objectivity.” When asked about Ireland today he expresses great anger towards the Catholic church – an emotional issue,  considering his disclosure last year of the abuse he suffered as a boy under the Christian Brothers. He shows concern over the possibility that Ireland might be losing its unique voice: “I could write you 20 pages of words where, if I went back to the part of Dublin where I grew up, kids there today wouldn't understand them,” he tells me. He’d like to see that voice grow stronger so that, particularly in film, Ireland can tell its own story. He also, however, seems genuinely in awe of the talent that has emerged from Ireland in the past few years – in spite of the Celtic tiger and the economic downturn, or maybe because of it.

The connections still run deep. Despite having lived in the U.S. for more than twenty years and raising his two children here (his daughter is starting college in the fall), he still very much considers himself Irish, not Irish American. But then, for him it seems that there are different kinds of home: “Home in the most profound spiritual sense is always Ireland. [But] your children determine where home is.”

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For information on Revisiting The Quiet Man: Ireland on Film and other Imagine Ireland events and performances visit www.imagineireland.ie
 

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