‘Jimmy’s Hall,” Ken Loach’s loving dramatization of the life and times of the Irish communist James “Jimmy” Gralton, begins with jumpy black-and-white archival footage of Depression-era New York.
Cut to the lush green of County Leitrim, and a country road where a gaggle of folk merrily dance a jig.
Well, they’d be merrier if someone would reopen the old dance hall in Effrinagh — a place where people once gathered not just to step out to airs and reels, but to learn crafts, paint pictures, read poetry. It was what we call a community center now, and the community loved it. The church leaders and the landowners (or “the pastors and the masters,” as someone calls them)? Not so much.
Down that road comes Jimmy Gralton (Barry Ward), returning home from 10 years in the States. He’s asked if he would swing the creaking doors of the hall open again, dust things off, and invite the townspeople in. And he does. But because the talk sometimes turns to politics, to fair wages and saving struggling families from eviction, the local Catholic priest (Jim Norton) and the landed gentry set out to close the place for good.
