IRELAND on FILM series:

Into the West

(1992) 97 minutes

For a film described as children’s fare, this feature by Mike Newell is a surprisingly tough candidate, as its magical realist elements convey all the miseries amidst the myths of the Travelers. Having resisted assimilation into the Irish mainstream for over four centuries, the Travelers are a vulnerable people on the fringe––with the government’s attempts to settle them into public housing only exacerbating their alienation.

In the film, Gabriel Byrne plays Papa, the fallen “King” of the Travelers, who has lost his way after the death of his wife and has been reduced to a squalid life of scamming in the slums of North Dublin. Papa’s father-in-law (David Kelly) still lives on the road and on a ramble along the coast encounters an otherworldly white horse that he names Tír na nÓg––Irish for “Land of Eternal Youth.” The horse follows the old man to Dublin where it bonds with his grandsons Tito and Ossie. But a tenement is no place for a horse, and when a corrupt policeman (Brendan Gleeson) seizes it, the boys find a way to steal Tír na nÓg back. A chase begins, with the boys fleeing on horseback to the wilder parts of the West Coast. It is a dangerous journey through a hostile country, with the boys living by their wiles while their Papa tries to find them before the authorities do. Along the way, Papa finds his way back into his own culture, where redemption awaits.

BE ADVISED -- This film is rated PG, with smoking, drinking, profanity, urban squalor, children in peril, and Brendan Gleeson playing yet another nasty policeman.