It’s one thing to be a movie actress portraying a character in a secretive anti-government group, but it’s a far different to be a person in real life battling a government every day. In movies, guns fire blanks; in real life, they shoot bullets.
So, when actress Rose McGowan told reporters at a Toronto film festival press conference for her new movie ”Fifty Dead Men Walking” that if she had lived through Northern Ireland’s ”Troubles,” she would have joined the Irish Republican Army, she almost immediately drew a protest from the very man upon whose life the film is based.
“I imagine had I grown up in Belfast I would have 100 percent joined the IRA,” said McGowan, 35, who plays a high-ranking IRA femme fatale in the movie, alongside British actors Jim Sturgess and Ben Kingsley.
“My heart just broke for the cause and I have a lot of respect for the intelligence and the honor that these people carried.”
“Fifty Dead Men Walking,” which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival on Wednesday, is based on Martin McGartland’s best-selling 1997 memoir of a young Catholic hustler living in Belfast in the late ’80s who was recruited by British intelligence to infiltrate the IRA.
McGartland, who is still in hiding and lives under a false identity on the British mainland, responded with a statement on Thursday slamming McGowan’s off-the-cuff remarks.
“Such comments are deeply offensive and hurtful to victims of IRA terrorism,” he said.
McGowan, whose father is Irish, was born and raised in Italy. Could she really know what it meant to be an IRA member just because she was in a movie? Are statements such as hers made by actors ”deeply offensive and hurtful” to people on both sides of an issue who have suffered in real life? They are interesting questions, and we’d like to know readers’ views.
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This point’s already been made, but its a good one: saying she would have joined the IRA because her father was Irish is akin to saying she’d join Al Quaeda if her father was Muslim.
Just as such a comment would be far more offensive to Muslims than to Americans, so too are her comments far more offensive to the people of Northern Ireland than to those of the British mainland - both have suffered at the hands of the IRA, but like Al Quaeda, nobody has suffered more than the people they claim to be fighting for. No doubt she hasn’t ever encountered the victims of the IRA, both Catholic and Protestant, Irish and British, the people who lost relatives, friends and limbs in their cowardly bombing campaigns, the people who were tortured or the women who were raped.
Her arrogance is shocking - she claimed she was “offended” by the sight of Union Flags in Belfast - did she not pause to think that these were people of Northern Ireland flying those flags? Or that the largest elected party on the Northern Ireland Assembly is Unionist? Or that she herself was not from Northern Ireland, and was not in a position to pass judgement over the respective choices of national identity in the different communities in Northern Ireland?
If she really felt strongly about Irish Republicanism, why not voice her support for the SDLP or some other democratic republican organisation?
- Posted by NickI found it hard to believe the unintelligent comments I read attributed to Rose McGowan. I too liked Rose, now I see her as a very evil twisted idiot. I also read the two books which the film was made in to. And I for one will be boycotting it. I suppose she also has sympathy with the 9/11 bombers too. Shame on you Rose.
- Posted by DineenIn a Response to Johnny Anderson
“The IRA killed more Catholics than did the British security forces and Loyalist paramilitays combined, not to mention the 1300 Protestants, over 2250 in total so what’s she saying.”
The I.R.A was Catholic!
- Posted by MaddyRose McGowan - Rose tinted glasses more like. How dare this idiot glamorise the suffering of all affected by the troubles by showing support for the murdering cowards who shot RUC Officers in the back and left chilren without fathers and mothers throughout our land. Come over here, speak to the victims, see for yourself what the IRA did first hand or else shut up and wise up. You owe us all an apology and we are waiting.
- Posted by Samshe is disgusting, i’m english and fair enough ireland wanted to be free but to blame it on the actual people when it was the government who rule britain who wanted to keep southern ireland not not the actual people, tbh british people couldn’t give a toss about ireland being part of the UK, WE DONT CARE, so stop blaming the wrong people. she has abosolotaly no idea what it was like during the ‘troubles’ seeing as she was in italy the whole bloody time, innocent people died and she’s backing that, well at least she has shown what kind of person she is, i hope this taints her like it should. God she is so sick.
- Posted by evieRose McGowan is entitled to her view, I hope she’s not bullied into an apology. I think she has obvious feeling for Ireland. I don’t condone violence but i can understand where the IRA are coming from. I am catholic living in Eire.
- Posted by JayAll of these people expressing “outrage” at Rose Mcgowan’s comments need to take a deep breath and calm down. Please, consider the source here. In reality, will the comments of another vapid Hollywood actress really have such a profound effect on your lives? Actors and actresses are the last people I turn to for opinions on world history and politics. If you are truly “hurt and outraged” by this idiotic hottie’s comments, you need to re-evaluate your own life.
If Little Rose had bothered to be educated on the subject rather than just memorizing lines for a film, I doubt she would hold the same opinion.
- Posted by Mr. BigTommy - how is Britain illegally occupying a group of islands nowhere near Argentina, that Argentina only got interested in once oil was discovered? The people there are descended from Scottish fishermen and such like - and chose to remain British. If the people there choose independence or to be part of Argentina (or Brazil, USA, whoever), that’s another matter.
If Britain hadn’t settled this island, the Spanish would have and used it as a staging post to attack GB - right now, we’d be having a discussion in Spanish about the Spanish presence in Ireland. If you resent the British influence in Ireland you should remove the infrastructure and become a Spaniard. Indeed, as your ancestors are Celts and not the pre-Celtic inhabitants the Celts took the island from, you should clear off back to southern Europe.
You say the North was created to give supremacy - do you deny the cultural genocide on protestants living in the Republic post-partition? Do you deny the RC Church’s part in organising boycotts of protestant-owned businesses? The North was created in response to protestant fears - justified, as it turned out. I agree the vote was in favour of all-island independence - though in the area now known as the north, it was overwhelmingly in favour of remaining in the UK. That which remained in the UK prospered, had industry and did well. The other 26 counties became a backwards state trapped in superstition until the EC pumped billions of Euro in.
Those who joined the IRA (or UVF, UDA, INLA, etc), did so because of poor circumstances and a one-sided view of history. At one time I would have happily joined the UVF but I was too young - and I am glad. I grew up, got an education and realised that all sides - SF and DUP especially - peddle myths and lies to back up their own positions. Indeed, the lies I was told by Loyalists are not unlike the lies my ex-Republican friends were once told - “the other side kept us poor, didn’t want us to be educated, etc.” Lies, told to children who know no better and who believe it until they spend time with people from another background.
Ireland’s problems will not be solved by forcing unification on northerners who do not want it or by denying either side their cultural heritage. Recognising each other’s common humanity and a need to peacefully co-exist on the same rock and work to our mutual benefit - that might be a start.
- Posted by MinervaI believe that Miss Mcgowan meant no offence or disrespect to anyone with her statement. I believe that her comment was just a point of view that was purely meant as a means for her to explain her opinion of her new role.
Much respect to Rose Mcgowan, From her Biggest Fan!
- Posted by thomas maclaine‘Minerva, the North of Ireland is not a country, it is a illegal state. In the only fair and democratic vote on the matter of an independant Ireland, the vast majority of the people voted for a free united Ireland’.
Tommy, are you for real?? The protestants in NI remain in the majority and a democratic vote established NI. because of this.
- Posted by BernardThe Falkands were uninhabited islands and for the last 100 or so years people from GB settled there. No Argentinian has ever settled there, unless you include a mass armed invasion. Forcing falklanders against their will to be Argentinian would be a complete travesty. If China laid claim to New Zealand doubtless you would support that claim??
The IRA planted bombs in pubs in Guildford & Birmingham and also outside Harrods & other shopping areas including Manchester & Omagh - no innocent deaths - don’t make me laugh, and what of irish catholics killed for knocking an IRA man’s pint over?? when the family and friends complained they had a ‘visit’ from the boys ’shut the feck up or you’re next’
Meantime they deal Colombian drugs and get cosy with Muslim terrorists in Palestine and elsewhere (IRA trained and suppled by Libya, the same country that blew up the Lockerbie Pan Am flight). They had a cause but they just became gangsters who would happily kill you or I tomorrow. They could have killed Ian Paisley but never would because they needed an ‘enemy’ to keep attention away from their Mafia type activities.
Finally, Rose McGowan is seriously misguided and should apologise, I thought Americans had learnt a bitter lesson about terrorists but I guess I was wrong.
The woman is an idiot - while she’s at it, why doesn’t she issue a statement showing her support for Al-Qaeda. Then she’ll have the American’s on her back too.
- Posted by NI100% would have joined the IRA!!!!
You need to choose your words carefully Rose Mcgowan or whatever your name is, yep, you don’t seem to be aware of all the innocent people you died in Northern Ireland…
Shame on you - hope your fans see the real you.
- Posted by ScottA few points here:
While the Omagh bombing was carried out by the ‘Real IRA’, they are a split-away faction of former IRA members.
To the IRA supporter (Sean) from Armagh:
The IRA did indeed kill more Roman Catholics than any other organisation - this is not made up. (see cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/crosstabs.html - IRA: 341; next highest = 278 by the UVF). Republicanism, as it was two hundred years ago, did indeed have many Protestant leaders (the United Irishmen, for example). This changed over the next hundred years though. People like James Connolly, James Larkin, Jack White, Arthur Griffith, John O’Mahony, Eamon de Valera, Seán Mac Stíofáin, Joe Cahill and Sean Russell were all Roman Catholics.
What is a “half Protestant”, by the way?
To Garth: “Universities and education was denied to most catholics, civil service jobs were off limits”
This is completely untrue. I think you should stop talking about stories you might have heard, ironically calling others “ill-informed revisionists” and read up on how Northern Ireland’s Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Education was a Roman Catholic, and a (quite high up) civil servant no less, back in the 1920s. I implore you to check your facts first, and don’t listen to made up stories in future.
To Breandán: I think you’ll find that the IRA’s goal, as stated by them on more than one occasion, was to create enough destruction and mayhem as to make Northern Ireland un-governable. Thus their very raison d’être was the destruction of the state. The consequences on peoples’ lives, rights, families and businesses weren’t even secondary.
You speak of the “Irish [whose] land [was] usurped by the British”, yet you seem to forget, or not to be aware, that the Irish were British, just like Texans are American. When you speak of you not having “cast the first stone”, I’d love to know who “we” are. Are “we” the Gaels, who invaded Ireland so entirely and completely that the natives ended up speaking their language? How about the Normans, who ruled from the Pale and were invited over initially by an Irish land-owner, and from whom many ‘Irish people’ are now descended having become “more Irish than the Irish”? How about the Roman Catholic Church, who gave the kingship of Ireland to an English monarch?
Would I defend my country? From the likes of the IRA, yes - possibly.
To Blissett: “The british army killed and maimed countless civilians on behalf of an apartheidesque regime”… it was counted, in fact. The British Army killed 151 civilians during the Troubles. That compares with 517 by the IRA (from 1970 - 2001) and 359 by the UVF (same period).
Democracy was very real in Northern Ireland. Like anywhere else where a majority rules, there was corruption and favouritism. The changes to the law that the Civil Rights Movement had campaigned for were implemented by the time the Provisional IRA started their campaign in earnest - it wasn’t about civil rights. It was about getting what they demanded, ignoring democracy.
To Tommy: The IRA were terrorists. There was no “army of occupation”. Saying “the IRA never intentionally killed innocent people” is particularly subjective to start with, never mind untrue. Equally, the same could be said of the British Army, the police or even other terrorist groups such as the UVF or UDA. As for the Provos not starting the ‘war’, well that may be true. However, the Provos are the descendant organisation of the original IRA, which did have its part in starting a ‘war’. Remember 1916? Remember the campaign in the 1950s? The Provisional IRA continued violence when other, less extreme members of the Official IRA had more or less decided enough was enough. So they certainly kept a ‘war’ going.
To Colum: “rocky road to Dublin”, eh? Sounds wonderful. As an Irishman, I’ve got Ireland, by the way. Perhaps it’s about time the twenty-six breakaway counties rejoined those who remained.
The comments made by this actress are insensitive and insulting to all right-minded Irish people who abhor the violence and killing in the name of some dated ‘romantic’ political cause. The actress should apologise as soon as possible.
- Posted by RobbieMinerva, the North of Ireland is not a country, it is a illegal state. In the only fair and democratic vote on the matter of an independant Ireland, the vast majority of the people voted for a free united Ireland. “Northern Ireland” never was and never has been a legitimate part of the UK, it is Irish territory under occupation from British forces. I do actually think that Britain is illegally occupying the Malvinas (Falklands) and comparisons like Scotland and Cornwall are not fair comparisons, both places created the Union and willingly accepted it. Unlike the North, created to ensure the supremacy of one group of people over another.
By the way, the IRA were the most efficient guerrila warfare army the world has ever known, far more organised and with far better weapons to strike at any target than any Islamic cell ever had. They chose not to go for mass murder, they took the war to Britain in order to show the plight of the Irish people to the British public. No civilian deaths were ever intended, but war is terrible and terrible things happened unfortunetly.
Wullie Frazer? Come on, are we really taking what this man has to say seriously. We all know what this guy is like.
- Posted by TommyWhat a bloody idiot. I am Scottish and have always been keen on independence and can understand the anger of the Irish people. Yes, of course we sympathise with the troubles in Northern Ireland. But has this stupid, ignorant fool any idea at all of the suffering that went on, of the methods used by the IRA? The British Army were also entirely a huge part of the problem - the British Government were giving instructions - but if she had any, any idea at all about what happened then she would keep her pretty mouth shut. Its easy to glorify a cause you don’t understand - perhaps she would agree that Al-Qaeda were entirely justified in the horror they caused the USA. Perhaps she also thinks that the genocide in Africa is justified. Stupid, stupid girl. She needs to get an education, speak to the victims and then, only then, let her ridiculous views become public. An apology is needed immediately. Boycott her film. Bloody idiot.
- Posted by Fiona YoungRose finds the national flag of the UK “Offensive” in a part of the UK, in which the majority wish to remain.
I regret to have to point this out but if 9/11 had happened 10 or 20 years earlier things would have been very different for terrorist supporting irish Americans!
Wake up and smell the coffie, Irish America
- Posted by A CrawfordGarth said: “Universities and education was denied to most catholics” - so how come a majority vote of Queen’s University of Belfast’s Students’ Union, during the troubles, voted to have all their communication in English and Irish? Simple - the majority of students were Catholic Nationalists. Don’t slabber nonsense without at least backing it up with fact.
Emmett - fair point re Bloody Sunday. Was that a planned massacre, or a dreadful cock-up though? General Sir Mike Jackson, present on the day, takes the latter view and can see why it ended up as a recruiting triumph for the provos. He was there to ensure hangers-on didn’t cause problems at the Civil Rights march - they did though - and terrified 18/19 year old soldiers got involved and the rest is history. For us who lived through it, we can at least see that when people like Rose McGowan spout nonsense it is because they are over-simplifying a complex issue. People on all sides who would otherwise be sane and rational did awful things. Plenty of people did good and heroic things too. Plenty of young, impressionable teenagers were drawn into stuff they didn’t understand and would later regret - from both sides.
Ciarán - Do you agree the people who hijacked planes and drove them into the World Trade Center had a fair point, because of percieved American oppression? Yes, many nationalists were downtrodden - have you read of the contribution of Devalera and the Catholic Church to keeping it that way?
Blissett - do your homework. What references can you cite in support of the British Army killing and maiming ‘countless’ civilians? Yes, they did kill people - the vast majority of whom considered themselves to be soldiers fighting a war. When a group takes up arms against legitimate government and civilians, this is what happens. What references can you cite in support of their non-apologies when mistakes happened (they do admit them - read General Sir Mike Jackson’s biography on this). Where, exactly, did the IRA apologise? Ballymurphy - tragic, yes. An inquest would help, yes. Will the Republican movement assist an inquest into Enniskillen?
UVF1609 - Surely the UVF were part of the problem too?
Tommy - the British Army were in Northern Ireland, part of the UK. How were they an occupying force? By your logic, the British Army presence in the Falklands, Scotland and Cornwall is one of occupation.
“If you need an explanation of Northern Ireland, you will never understand it. If you understand it, no explanation is sufficient” - Anon
- Posted by MinervaDid no-one tell Ms McGowan that the people of Ulster have accepted the unconditional surrender of the IRA? The war is over.
Ulster says no.
- Posted by TarquinGOOD ON YOU ROSE!!!
I love her even more 
I remember when she was in the Felons on the Andersontown Road … where would you get?
And to “UVF1690″ The IRA wre drug dealers etc .. What was the UVF? Saints? Don’t think so!
And if Rose had said she would of joined the UVF or UDA it would be a completly different matter
Big Whoop, people really have to get over it, seriously!
So build a bridge and get over it!
- Posted by randomerI don\’t usually write comments on things like this but I really feel compelled to do so here. I really felt as though affter the 9/11 attacks that any IRA support in America would have disappeared. I think support did decrease but there are clearly some people who continue to sympathise, despite of it or maybe they are re-sympathesing as 9/11 becomes more and more a distant memory. Al-Queda and the IRA trained together!! WAKE UP!!! Part of me doesn\’t necessarily blame their ignorance - I certainly don\’t know all there is to know about places like Sudan or Zimbabwe etc but then I don\’t try to pretend that I do. The absolute vast majority of people in N.Ireland do NOT support the IRA or any of the loyalist paramilities. Only a small pecentage of people decided to join the IRA during the troubles. Does Rose think everyone wanted to be part of the IRA? Get real! The vast majority of people do not support them and it is extremely frustrating when people like Rose think they know it all. Those people who say Al-Queda are nothing like the IRA are talking rubbish. The IRA (and other paramilitary groups) had (and still to some extent have) the people of N.Ireland living in fear of their lives, feeling threatened and scared for their families. I still get scared when there is a fire alarm in a shop - coming from Belfast myself, I guess its a psychological thing that I immediately think of a bomb scare! Al-Queda brought those same fears to the US and I can only ask Americans to empathise with the majority of people in N.Ireland who like them, want to live in peace. Yes, the British Army did kill people - but 2 wrongs don’t make a right!!! Terrorists like the IRA should not, under any circumstances, be given the moral go ahead to kill innocent people.
- Posted by Teresa