ABSTRACT
For both experts and laymen, describing what is an “Irish film” poses difficulties of categorization and definition born from the unique history of film production in Ireland, shared language with other English-speaking and film-producing countries (especially Britain and the United States), and the global distribution of Irish people, heritage, and themes. The most productive route to addressing any such description, which intersects with questions of national identity and its formation and articulation, may not be to define categories and establish boundaries, but rather to indulge in an assessment and examination of the traits and influences exhibited by, and not necessarily defined by, any body of films we might like to loosely, and not exclusively, characterize as “Irish”. This leaves us swimming in a sea of ambiguity in need of a metaphor to help distill and contain the myriad influences that come to bear on the questions of Irish national identity, Irish culture and Irish cinema. So, I offer triangulation.
