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★★★★★
Ireland and Scotland
The documentary laid out an excellent case for Edward Bruce to drive out the English in Ireland, from its beginnings in 1305 after the execution of WIlliam Wallace to the final battle some13 years later. My only contention with he film was that it could have gone back a couple of centuries earlier to 1154 when Pope Adrian IV and Henry II spelled out the conditions which would have allowed the latter to conquer Ireland and make it a papal vassal in th bull Laudabiliter. It is only mentioned in passing, and it never metions the invasion Henry undertook some 15 years later, when he landed 400 ships filled with men and arms off the coast of Waterford, thus beginning the long occupation of Ireland, which continues to the present with the six counties, including Antrim and Tyrone still under British control as a result of the partition of 1920.
Many of the interviewees, including Sean Duffy and Ted Cowan, are some of the best scholars of medieval Ireland and Scotland, and I was glad the filmmaker turned to their expertise. In less capable hands, this could have turned into another progandistic cry for the empty promise of a freedom that would never come. Instead, it laid out the Bruces' case for the invasion of Ireland, not only because the cultural and ancestral commonalities, but that the Anglo-Normans in both countries were truly an oppressive force which even the papacy refused to recognise, as witnessed in the aftermath of Donal ONeill's 1317 Remonstrance, yet the papacy not only ignored ONeill's letter, but as we see here, actually ordered an excommunication of Edward and Donal for daring to broach the subject of Irish oppression at the hands of the Anglo Norman monarchy.
This was very well made and researched. In light of what is happening in the present with the possible breakup of the UK with both an independent Scotland and a reunified Ireland in the wake of the Brexit vote, it would highly instructive for people to look at this film to understand how these three nations have arrived at this point and extrapolate their intertwined histories unto the present.
July 2016 · Movies and TV · verified purchase