Roddy Doyle under the lens

“ There was
all this stuff
about how I had
written The Van
with a view to selling it
as a screenplay,
that it wasn’t a novel
at all and that
I had my eye on
the Hollywood market.
Leaving aside the
actual content of the book
– two middle-aged men
with a chip van –
”
it was still baffling.
Doyle is right to be sceptical about
the motives of his more malign critics but
he should be less baffled that his work is
associated with an artistic practice that
has been an integral part not only of the
lives of characters but of his own activity
as a writer.
In his study, Cronin concentrates the
high point of that activity, namely the film
versions of three novels which constitute
the Barrytown Trilogy, and which
appeared as The Commitments (1991), The
Snapper (1993) and The Van (1996). Taken
together, the novels and the films constitute
a crucial body of work that
not only give voice to the particular
preoccupations of the recent Irish past but
remain startlingly contemporary in the
manner in which they articulate the
specific relationship between Irish locality
and global futures. Cronin shows how the
films give rise to a new understanding of
Donal O'Kelly (Bimbo) and Colm Meany (Larry)
DCUTIMES
place and identity in Ireland, and offers
crucial insights into the importance of
popular culture in reworking established
categories of identification and belonging.
Most importantly, Cronin
demonstrates how the films in the
Barrytown Trilogy can be viewed as part
of a project of generation and a crucible of
change. The films rather than being the
last chapters in a romance of loss penned
by the disaffected form the template for
the emergence of a new kind of Ireland.
The Commitments on stage. Bronagh Gallagher (Bernie McGloughlin), Angeline Ball (Imelda Quirke), Maria
Doyle (Natalie Murphy), Felim Gormley (Dean Fay), Johnny Murphy (Joey ‘The Lips’ Fagan), Kenneth
McCluskey (Derek Scully), Andrew Strong (Deco Cuffe), Dick Massey (Billy Mooney), Glen Hansard (Outspan
Foster)
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