Hearing the Banshees of Inisherin

Discerning what "Banshees of Inisherin" is all about is the central mystery of this wonderful film and the answer remains unsolved until the very end.

Padraic, the protagonist, but not the central character, goes to collect his best and longest friend, Colm, who for the first time simply ignores Padraic's rapping at the window and Padraic, confused, and disturbed trudges off to the pub, where he had thought he would be drinking dark beer with his friend and he commiserates with the barkeep, who asks the obvious question, "Are ye row-ing?" That is are you having another fight, which, apparently is not unheard of between the two friends.

No, that is not what is brewing, as Colm finally arrives at the pub and announces that he no longer likes Padraic, and no longer wishes to be friends with him, without explanation. Of course, Padraic asks what has caused this rift and Colm replies he has simply concluded Padraic is a waste of time: Padraic's conversation is filled with the trivia of daily life, down to what he finds in the scat of his donkey, which, after lo these many years, Colm now finds agonizingly banal and "dull." His friend has become a bore, or, more exactly always has been, and Colm realizes he has only limited time left on earth and he doesn't want to waste it on the mundane and the boring. 

He might be a bored housewife on the way out the door after 20 years of an unfulfilling marriage.

Colm wants to create music, like Mozart's, which will last through the ages, after him. Colm is looking for the transcendent and the immortal and Padriac celebrates the joy of every day life and compatible friendship, of being "nice."

All this is happening while the alternative to brotherly love and tolerance is echoing in the distance, across the water, as the Irish Civil War is burning itself out, and its explosions punctuate the calm of Inisherin erratically. 

The town policeman tells Colm he is looking forward to a free lunch he'll earn by attending an execution but he can't recall who is being executed or why--all the policeman cares about is the lunch. He is the ultimate in "not nice."

Padraic's sister, Siobhan, confronts Colm with the very obvious, "But Padraic has always been dull," so why reject him now for what he is and has always been?

Colm has no answer for this other than to say that dull is not enough. Fifty years from now, nobody will remember Padraic for being nice; nor will anyone remember Siobhan fifty years from now. But people will remember Mozart hundreds of years from now, a 17th century musician, Colm says, remembered, not for being nice, but for being great.

Siobhan notes that Colm has not even placed Mozart in the proper century, suggesting that Colm has no real grasp of what real greatness is.

August Macke

It is this moment which challenges Padraic's very essence. Why should being "nice" not be enough, not be celebrated?  He invests that word with so much more than "nice:" Nice envelops the quality of kindness but it also extends to ordinary things, which make life rich. Nice is the every day joy of living, the stuff which people who have been told they have only a short time to live, so relish. The joy of every day things. Obama once observed that as President, he missed this stuff the most--just going down the block and getting coffee, just washing dishes. 

(To which, famously, Obama's  wife interjected: "And when have you ever washed the dishes?" in a scene which could have fit seamlessly into Banshees.)

Padraic unleashes a volley which stuns everyone: It's not important his sister will not be remembered by others in 50 years; what is important is that he thinks Siobhan is nice right now, which, of course, totally endears him to Siobhan, and which makes her decision to leave her brother even more difficult. Padraic continues that Colm can have his friend, the policeman, Peadar, for whom a free lunch is more important than any sort of justice. And, for good measure, Padraic throws in the true stunner: Peadar is well know to be sexually abusing his son, both sexually and physically.

In fact, the character of Peadar the policeman is pivotal in revealing a decent side of Colm: It is after the policeman blindsides Padraic, striking him to the ground, that Colm gathers up his former friend and sets him on his cart back home, and later Colm lays out the nasty cop with a blow after Peadar threatens Padraic. 

But Colm is not the man we can actually sympathize with, even though it is his struggle which drives most of the movie. He could have explained himself more kindly to Padraic, and his insistence on cutting off his own fingers places Padraic in an agonizing position. 

In the end, Padraic is driven to a classic Greek tragedy place--he has got to say, like Antigone, "No"; he has got to stop being nice and start asserting himself, which he does with fire and which, in the end, he embraces. 

Colm has insisted he stop being so nice, and in fact the very first time Padraic stops being nice, however briefly, is the first time Colm finds him interesting.

In the end, it is Colm who suffers the greatest abuse, but it is a suffering he has invited and in some way deserves. Padraic has had to change; his suffering has made him less nice and more interesting. His path down that road to nastiness is step by step, first lying to an innocent musician which he rationalizes as a lie which will be discovered and will be harmless in the end. But, step by step, he moves away from a man who prattles on about his donkey's scat to a man who burns down the edifice of a lost friendship.