'De Valera was a bit of a slimeball' - Director Neil Jordan tells Leitrim audience

Renowned filmmaker and writer Neil Jordan took center stage, offering powerful reflections on storytelling, Irish history, and his creative process at this year’s Iron Mountain Festival, held at The Dock in Carrick-on-Shannon. Speaking to an engaged audience, Jordan—best known for his films The Crying Game and Michael Collins—shared personal anecdotes, discussed the complexities of Irish identity, and revealed insights into his distinctive approach to filmmaking.

During the conversation, Jordan recalled a brief but formative time when he was taught by the celebrated Irish novelist John McGahern. "I was taught by John McGahern, briefly, very briefly. He taught us for a year or so, or two years. And then he just vanished. Nobody explained why. But when he wrote the book, we understood why. He had a tremendously wicked sense of the human condition, hadn't he?"

Jordan offered fascinating insights into the making of his 1996 historical Michael Collins, a film that shaped international perspectives on Irish history. He shared how his initial views on Collins evolved through the process of writing the script:

"I didn’t even like Collins when I started writing about him. I found him militaristic and conservative. But through a few short years, he became a democrat—that’s what made him fascinating. Internationally, people didn’t understand that about Ireland. They thought we were just throwing bombs."

He also recounted the long journey of bringing the film to the screen and the unintended consequence of lines he wrote being taken as historical fact: "I didn’t know this until later, but words I wrote for Collins in the film, which were fiction, are now quoted as if they were his real words: ‘Give us the future. We’ve had enough of your past. Give us back our country, to live in, to grow in, to love.’"

Rather than approaching the film as a traditional biopic, Jordan sought a more dynamic structure inspired by a different genre:

"I approached Michael Collins not like a biopic, which I find deathly dull, but like a Warner Brothers gangster film—action, reaction, a set of violent events. That structure allowed me to tell the story in an exciting way."

This method transformed what could have been a dry historical account into a gripping narrative that engaged audiences worldwide.

Jordan didn’t hold back when discussing other key figures from the period, particularly Éamon de Valera, a prominent political leader during the Irish War of Independence:

"De Valera was such a contradictory figure, but during that period from 1915 to 1922, he didn’t come off well. He was an extraordinary person in many ways, but I didn’t like him in that era. He was a bit of a slimeball, I’m sorry."

He also hinted at an unmade sequel to Michael Collins that would have focused on de Valera’s later years and his role in shaping modern Ireland after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty:

"I would love to make a sequel to Michael Collins—starting with de Valera walking into the Dáil, signing that treaty with his hand over his eyes, and continuing all the way through to the Second World War. But who’s going to give me the money for that?"

This ability to raise difficult questions and delve into challenging subjects has defined Jordan’s career, establishing him as one of Ireland’s most respected filmmakers and writers.

Throughout his talk, Jordan emphasized the vital role of storytelling in shaping our understanding of history and humanity. “Art should make you uncomfortable; it should make you think,” he told the crowd.

The Iron Mountain Festival, which gathered literary and cinematic voices to explore the theme of Peace, War, and the Music of What Happens, provided the perfect backdrop for Jordan’s reflections, offering a deeply personal glimpse into the creative mind behind some of Ireland’s most celebrated films.

Jordan also touched on how his earlier works, like The Crying Game, examined complex themes of identity and nationalism. He described it as “a series of questions, really, about what it means to be a human being, or to be Irish, to be male, to be a nationalist.” This ability to ask profound questions and to delve into the heart of difficult subjects has defined his career, making him one of Ireland’s most respected filmmakers and writers.

Jordan shared an especially poignant memory from his early days in theatre. Recalling a production of Yeats' The Cat and the Moon, he described an incident involving a young boy from Dublin's inner city:
"There was a boy, I’ll never forget, who believed so much in the power of theatre. He thought if he could become a girl, the abuse from his father would stop. It’s something none of us who witnessed it have ever forgotten."

Through his work, he continues to challenge audiences to confront their own narratives and embrace the complexities of the human experience, ensuring that the legacy of figures like Michael Collins remain for generations to come.