Made in Eire and raising ire

Ballyvourney, Ireland — THE back room of the Mills Bar in this small town about 45 miles outside of Cork City is an unlikely place to meet two of Ireland's latest acting sensations. Mary and Danny O'Riordan, both farmers in their 80s who have lived in this area all their lives, arrive without publicists, makeup assistants or cellphones, and their entrance barely raises a nod from the attending bar staff.

"It was great for Ken and for all of us ordinary people involved in the film. That's what made it special, the fact that so many locals were involved," Mary says as she pours herself a cup of tea.

"Ken" is award-winning British director Ken Loach, and the film -- "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" -- recently picked up the Palme d'Or Award at the Cannes Film Festival, catapulting this remote part of rural Ireland and its inhabitants onto the international stage. Life may never be the same for the many locals who took part in Loach's hard-hitting drama, which stars Cillian Murphy and is based on events during the Irish War of Independence.

Despite an overwhelmingly positive response from the local population, the reaction to the film's success has been less favorable in parts of the British media. The film follows a band of rural Irish people who unite to fight British soldiers sent to their area, and some commentators have called it "anti-British" and "IRA propaganda," while others have gone so far as to compare it to Hitler's "Mein Kampf."

Michael Gove, writing in London's Times, said the film helps to "legitimise the actions of gangsters."

The British historian Ruth Dudley Edwards, in an article headlined "Why Does Ken Loach Loathe Us So Much?," proclaimed: "Loach is so mired in the past that he is incapable of making a film that is not, at bottom, old-fashioned propaganda.... The truth is that, as empires go, the British version was the most responsible and humane of all."

The outbursts are notable, given that few journalists have actually seen the film ahead of its Friday release in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Loach is unperturbed, though, making the point that Ireland was a country under British colonial rule, and it is widely accepted that brutal acts took place.

Throughout his career, he has used film to tackle issues of injustice and oppression that cut close to the bone of public opinion, and he's accustomed to dealing with accusations of disloyalty by fellow countrymen.