Frayed sepia photographs of IRA flying columns still line the walls of the snug bar along with new pictures of the

Frayed sepia photographs of IRA flying columns still line the walls of the snug bar along with new pictures of the film being made. Sitting with glasses of Guinness at the Mills Inn, in Ballyvourney, Fiontan O’Meaghair and Padraig O’Suilleabhain, teachers, reflected on the film and the events it portrayed.Mr O’Meaghair, whose eight-year-old son, Diarmuid, was picked for a part in the film, said: “I honestly don’t think an Irishman could have made this film It took an Englishman to do it … But hidden memories have been stirred by Ken Loach’s film The Wind That Shakes the Barley, the winner of Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year.Loach’s film was shot in west Cork, in and around the villages of Ballyvourney and Coolea where The Top of the Coom, “the highest pub in Ireland”, was a well-known vantage point changing hands between the opposing sides. In Beal na Blath (the Mouth of the Flowers) Michael Collins, a son of Cork and national hero, was assassinated by his former comrades for his “treachery” in his signing the peace treaty with Lloyd George’s government.The murders, tortures and burnings of the colonial conflict, the hated Black and Tans and the bitter internecine strife are, for many, still too raw even after all these years. What the guide books do not do, however, is mention the commemoration of the violence from a recent past. Along with the plaques there are charred, blackened ruins of burned and shattered buildings, kept as reminders of a time of anger and grief that is rarely spoken of with outsiders.Cork was the most militant centre of Irish nationalist resistance to British rule in the 1920s, the setting of a brutal war of independence and the subsequent civil war which pitted brother against brother. Everyone knows the stories of these men, but it is not something one likes to talk about.

They are just sad memories of a terrible, terrible time.”Reciting a litany of names “Miceal O’Loingrig, Seamus O’Liacain, Sean O’Ceilleacain”, Padraig O’Suilleabhain remembers the victims of a dirty war and a long-forgotten conflict, when in popular memory an army of farmhands and idealists gave the run to the might of the British Army.The plaque is one just one of many along the roads of west Cork. The tourist guide books highlight the rolling hills and deep lush valleys edging down to a wild coastline warmed by the Gulf stream. A soft rain is falling on a fading grey plaque in the centre of Ballyvourney, water trickling over its letters and dripping into the gutter below. But through the mist its words read clearly, a stark reminder that this little town has a history it finds hard to forget. “In memory of the civilians murdered by British forces,” it says, with a quiet simplicity.

There is no need for fine words; the past here is as powerful now as it ever was before.
Standing beside the memorial in the Cork Gaeltacht where the Irish language still survives in many households, a local teacher slowly shakes his head “Such a waste of lives. Head of the heavily-armed ministry of internal affairs paramilitary force, his lawyer says he was sent to The Hague “against his will”.. Prosecutors accuse him of facilitating the campaign of ethnic cleansing.* DRAGOLJUB OJDANICUnder Milan Milutinovic, General Ojdanic commanded the Yugoslav military and police units in Kosovo as the army’s chief of staff. He was indicted in May 1999 and surrendered to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.* NEBOJSA PAVKOVICGeneral Pavkovic is charged with several counts of crimes against humanity for his role as commander of the Yugoslav 3rd Army, which was responsible for much of the destruction of property and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.* VLADIMIR LAZAREVICColonel General Lazarevic, commander of the Yugoslav 3rd Army’s elite Pristina Corps, surrendered to The Hague in February 2005 after 15 months at large. He was appointed deputy prime minister of Serbia in 1994 and was Milosevic’s representative in Kosovo. He often gave interviews expressing his wishes for a reoccupation of Kosovo.* SRETEN LUKICThe former Serb police chief in Kosovo, Lukic had major heart surgery after his indictment. The old regime * MILAN MILUTINOVICA close ally of Slobodan Milosevic and president of Serbia from 1997-2002, Milutinovic is charged with a number of war crimes, including murder and forced deportations, for his role in theethnic cleansing of Kosovo’s Albanian population.* NIKOLA SAINOVICSainovic handed himself into the tribunal in May 2002.