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Teddy: [looking around Hamilton's study] Such a beautiful room, it's hard to imagine a man's scream from here. Ever seen fingernails ripped out with a rusty pliers, Sir John, hmm? All your learning, and you still don't understand.
Sir John Hamilton: Oh, I understand perfectly, Mr. O'Donovan. God preserve Ireland if ever your kind take control.
Damien: [trains his gun on Hamilton] Well, you'd better start getting used to the idea.
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Damien: Micheail was killed because he wouldn't say his name in English. That what you call a martyr, is it, Teddy?
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Damien: I tried not to get into this war, and did, now I try to get out, and can't.
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Damien: The Treaty does not express the will of the people, but the fear of the people.
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Damien: And once again, with honourable exception, the Catholic Church sides with the rich.
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Damien: Strange creatures we are, even to ourselves.
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Teddy: It's not too late, Damien.
Damien: For me or for you?
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Damien: [loading revolver] I studied anatomy for five years, Dan. And now i'm going to shoot this man in the head. I've known Chris Reilly since he was a child. I hope this Ireland we're fighting for is worth it.
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Chris: Promise me, Damien. Promise me you won't bury me next to him?
[points to Sir John]
Damien: The chapel. Do you remember, on the way up? Do you remember?
Chris: Yeah.
Damien: In there.
Chris: Tell Teddy I'm sorry. I'm scared, Damien.
Damien: [sighs] Have you said your prayers?
Chris: Yeah.
Damien: God protect you.
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Damien: [to Teddy] You have wrapped yourself in the fucking Union Jack! The butcher's apron, boy!
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Damien: It's easy to know what you are against, but quite another to know what you are for.
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Finbar: [the IRA have just gunned down several Black and Tans] Mercenaries! That were paid to come over here to make us crawl, and to wipe us out. We've just sent a message to the British cabinet that will echo and reverbarate around the world! If they bring their savagery over here, we will meet it with a savagery of our own!
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Damien: Give me your letters, Chris.
[Damien holds out his hand. Chris just looks at him]
Damien: Give me your letters, Chris!
Chris: I didn't know what to write. And Mam can't read.
[Damien lets his hand fall, sighs]
Chris: Just tell her I love her. And where I'm buried.
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Damien: How many British soldiers in the country, Tim?
Tim: Too many.
Damien: How many?
Teddy: About ten thousand, Damien.
Damien: Ten Thousand. Tans, artillery units, machine-gun car, cavalry...
Teddy: And many more besides. What's your point, Damien?
Damien: It's young men like Micheail we're talkin' about, Teddy.
Teddy: Micheail was a real Irishman, Damien.
Ned: You're a coward, Damien.
Damien: I'm a coward? And you're a hero, isn't it, Ned? You're gonna take down the British army with your hurley, is that it?
Rory: For Christ's sake, Damien. What about Micheail?
Damien: Look, Micheail was killed because he wouldn't say his name in English. Is that what you call a martyr, Teddy, is it?
Sinead: So we should all buy a one-way ticket to London, is that it, Damien?
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Sir John Hamilton: [facing execution] You'll never beat us. Never!
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Damien: Your presence here is a crime, a foreign occupation. You tell me what I'm supposed to do as a democrat. Turn the other cheek for another 700 years? Is that it?
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Damien: Get out of my country.
The Interrogator: What is your name?
Damien: Get out of my country.
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The Interrogator: You're not a bog cutter. Show me your hands. Show me your fucking hands!
Damien: What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? Pull my fingernails off, is that it?
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Dan: Right. You're paupers, just like me. Take a look up and down this country and see the amount of volunteers that are involved in land seizures and cattle drives. Now do you want to know why that is happening?
Teddy: That's enough of that now.
Dan: It's not enough of it! The IRA are backing the landlords and crushing people like you and me.
Teddy: You sat down with the IRA last night.
Dan: I'm talking here!
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Damien: We buried him in this chapel in the mountains. And I went down and... and I told his mother. His mother, who has cooked meals for me and her son. And when I told her she... she just looked at me. and then she went in and she put on her shoes. Then she came out and she said, "Take me to my child." And we walked for six hours and she didn't say one word. Then we got to the chapel.
[sighs]
Damien: And I showed her the grave. And I'd put a... cross and some flowers on it. And she turned to me and she said, "I never want to see your face again."
[sighs]
Damien: I've crossed the line now, Sinead.
-
Dan: If we ratify this treaty, all we're changing is the accents of the powerful and the colour of the flag.
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Sinead: It's Teddy in the freestate uniform. Teddy's wearing the bloody freestate uniform.
Dan: Kick out the Black and Tans, bring in the Green and Tans.
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Priest: Not content with stealing your savings, they'll be nationalising the 12 apostles next.
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Damien: It is too late, Teddy. You can't see it. You really can't see it. John Bull has got his hand down your pants, his fist round your bollocks and you can't see it?
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Peggy: [singing, at the wake for Micheail] The old for her / The new that made me think / On Ireland dearly / While soft the wind blew down the glen / And shook the golden barley / 'Twas hard the woeful words to frame / To break the ties that bound us / But harder still to bear the shame / Of foreign chains around us / And so I said the mountain glen / I'll seek at morning early / While soft the wind blew down the glen / And shook the golden barley
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Damien: I shot Chris Reilly in the heart. I did that. You know why. I'm not going to sell out.
Teddy: [walks to the door, not lookin at Damien] Better write your letters Damien.
[turna around and faces him]
Teddy: Tell us where the arms are... or you will be shot at dawn.
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[last lines]
Sinead: [to Teddy] Get out. Leave me. Get off my land! I don't ever want to see you again!
[breaks down]
Sinead: Oh, Damien, no. Oh, no.
[sobs]
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Teddy: "Immediate and terrible war." Those were the exact words. The threat promised by the British Cabinet if we didn't ratify this treaty.
-
Finbar: You say the Brits are leaving here? They're going 300 miles up the road, Leo. That's where they're going.
The Wind that Shakes the Barley Quotes
Extended Reading
The Wind that Shakes the Barley
Director: Ken Loach
Language: English,Irish Gaelic,Latin Release date: March 23, 2007