From the Old to the New World: Cinematic Offers of Spiritually Recuperative Trips to the Emerald Isle

Abstract

The recuperative retreat undertaken by Yeats in “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” (The Rose, 1893) from the drab reality of London’s “pavements grey” to an Irish scenery of solitude and natural harmony where he would find “some peace,” has being persistently rehearsed by Irish expatriates. However, it is in the cinematic portrayals of Ireland, often made by outsiders, where, notwithstanding the changed economic, political and social circumstances experienced by the Republic, the idealisation of rural Ireland and the healing powers of the island’s supposedly primitive lifestyle and values that people escaping from the stresses of urban life and competitive environments have endured longer. By considering the presence, and frequently random use, of anachronistic and clichéd cinematic signifiers of Irishness, the paper highlights both the recent proliferation of offerings of an Emerald Isle that does not exist beyond the screen and a regret concerning the films’ missed opportunity of interrogating and building on the vast corpus of the Irish diaspora’s narrativised history.