IRA or IRB historical mismatch

[Don_Wiley_Quixote]

Before the Easter Rising (the anniversary of which is in 3 days time) there was no "revolution" in Ireland. Leone got it wrong historically, or just moved the timeline for dramatic effect. The fact that Leone talked about the "young men" of the Irish rebellion possibly taking part in the Mexican one, when in fact any kind of a "wee fart of a revolution" was 6 years away yet in Dublin, leads me to think that Sergio didn't know what he was talking about. Not that it really matters or detracts from the film.

Certainly at the time the movie was made there were a string of terrorist atrocities through out Europe (and the middle East), and many of Leone's friend's noted a general political cynicism had crept into his conversation by this point. Most people in the world who read newspapers by then (or had watched a few John Ford films) knew who the IRA were.

As for where Coburn had aquired his dynamite skills from, I suggested in another thread that they were not learned through an armed conflict, but in fact from University. He is clearly a member of the wealthy classes (the car, the clothes, the county mansion/even if they are not his and they are Warbeck's, he's a man of means with rich friends). He has probabaly studied mining (the job he has at the start of the film) or  chemistry.

By 1910 there was no other way Coburn could have learned his trade "historically". It was only in 1911 that the IRB became an organised and militant force, and even then only in Ulster, and not in the South, where Leone places Coburn. It would be another two years before the IRB in the North set up it's paramilitry force, the Irish Volunteers. A couple of weeks later in Dublin, the Irish Citizen Army was formed.

Boring, isn't it? Not at all the sort of detail you really want to put in a drama (unless you are Ken Loach). No wonder Sergio and his screenwriters kept it more simple, if streaching historical truth.

Thanks Juan Miranda.

I had heard of dynamite campaigns on the British mainland on subway lines and industrial targets but that was in the 1880s.

[tintin]

Quite true--it  would have been the IRB, and the Sinn Fein after that, until 1919.  But, who in 1971 heard of the IRB when the IRA was in all the papers?  He had to be able to identify with the majority of the  audience at the risk of a small historical error.

[cigar joe]

Its the same on GBU with the Confederate Flags and Tucos use of Lee & Grant

[tintin]

I read in the book that John  had been a train engineer for  six months, maybe 10, 15 years ago.--Also he had done some mining in Ireland.  ??

[The Peacemaker]

I read in the book that John  had been a train engineer for  six months, maybe 10, 15 years ago.--Also he had done some mining in Ireland.  ??

I think the train engineer thing was added in the book simply to explain why in the movie Sean knows how to operate a steam locomotive which is extremely difficult and almost impossible to do without studying it's controls and how they work.


Most likely Sean, as many people believe, was rich or had connections to the upper class. Remember that cars and motorcycles in 1910 were extremely expensive. The automobile wasn't mass produced until Ford's assembly line models in the 20's when the prices dropped low enough for the average American.