Ulster versus Éire: Border Narratives in Cinema Newsreels

Abstract

Ulster versus Éire (1938) was an American March of Time newsreel exploring the complexities of Irish politics on both sides of the border. It came hot on the heels of an earlier film made by the same company, misleadingly titled Irish Republic (1937). The first film had sparked an attempt by the Northern Ireland government to present a propagandised film about the north in response to what was seen to be a favourable depiction of the south. Remarkably, the two films utilised much of the same footage to present two starkly contrasting narratives of ‘two Irelands’. This article explores how representations of the border in cinema newsreels failed to fully reflect the complexities of partition, but very clearly established a partitionist mentality in depicting two separate peoples, north and south of the border. The growth of this partitionist mentality is traced through stories covering the Home Rule movement and partition of Ireland in the 1910s and 1920s, the growing divide between north and south during the economically turbulent 1930s and the pressure placed on Ireland to reconsider its neutral status during the Second World War. Against this backdrop, the newsreels function as both a reflective cultural barometer of shifting perspectives on Ireland throughout the early twentieth century and an active Althusserian ‘Ideological State Apparatus’ in embodying and circulating British and American political attitudes to the border in an 'unofficial' capacity.