Why Barry Keoghan’s Dominic Is So Important in ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’

The Big Picture

• The Banshees of Inisherin
  is a heartfelt movie that explores themes of loneliness, death, and Irish political disputes.
• Barry Keoghan’s portrayal of Dominic, a misunderstood and shunned character, is both tragic and pivotal to the story.
• Dominic’s demise represents the death of innocence in the film, highlighting the choices made by the characters and the consequences they face.

Martin McDonagh‘s The Banshees of Inisherin is, by far, one of the most heartfelt movies in recent years. Whether you consider it a comedy or believe it to be a tragedy through and through, there’s no denying that every single scene in The Banshees of Inisherin is ridden with emotional sincerity and the purest, most intimate form of pain. A treaty about loneliness, death, small towns, and Irish political disputes, the film stars Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell as two friends whose relationship is destroyed when one of them just decides, for no apparent reason, to stop talking to the other. It’s a simple, albeit slightly absurd premise that is turned into a beautiful piece of cinematic art by McDonagh’s writing and directing, as well as by Gleeson and Farrell’s acting skills. However, the true heart of the film, the one thing that really makes it tick, lies elsewhere. If we examine the film up close, The Banshees of Inisherin wouldn’t have worked as well without the presence of a secondary character that serves as an encapsulation of everything the movie has to say: Barry Keoghan’s Dominic.

Keoghan’s performance in The Banshees of Inisherin was widely recognized in the form of trophies and nominations in the 2023 award season. The young actor won in the Best Supporting Actor category at the BAFTAs and was nominated at the SAGs and the Oscars, amongst many others. Still, the importance of his role in McDonagh’s magnum opus — at least, so far — deserves to be discussed in more detail. After all, Dominic is the most tragic character in a movie in which tragedies, both big and small, abound.

Barry Keoghan’s Dominic Is the Key to Understanding Colm and Pádraic’s Falling Out

At first glance, young Dominic looks almost like an afterthought in The Banshees of Inisherin, a story about the end of a friendship between two older men — the despair-stricken Colm (Gleeson) and the gentle, happy-go-lucky Pádraic (Farrell). As Colm goes to extremes to cut ties with Pádraic in order to focus on his art as old age creeps in, Dominic appears as an external force that either tries to convince Pádraic to let go of his friend or gives him advice to win him back. But as the movie goes on, we realize that Dominic isn’t irrelevant to the end of Pádraic and Colm’s relationship, but a symbol of precisely what caused it.

Colm doesn’t hide his reasons for cutting Pádraic out of his life. He believes his long-time drinking partner to be a dull man, with little to no interests besides his pet miniature donkey, Jenny. After years of friendship, Colm has grown tired of what he describes as Pádraic’s aimless conversations, and wishes to be left alone so that he can focus on his music, as well as on the internal life that he considers Pádraic to be completely devoid of. This, in turn, awakens a deep fear in Pádraic that he might be a laughingstock for the people of Inisherin. Over and over, he asks his sister, Siobhán (Kerry Condon), if he is dim and if others laugh at him behind his back.

In this scenario, the presence of Dominic represents, to Pádraic, both his greatest consolation and his biggest fear: While Pádraic can rest assured that Dominic will always be a bigger laughingstock than him, he also trembles at the thought that others might see him as he sees Dominic. And, indeed, that’s precisely how Colm sees him. Pádraic’s annoyance over Dominic’s shenanigans is akin to Colm’s irritation with Pádraic’s ramblings about the things he found in his miniature donkey’s poop. His pity towards Dominic is also quite similar to the pity Colm feels towards him. Perhaps no scene in the movie is more revealing than when Colm helps Pádraic after a beating from Officer Kearney (Gary Lydon), Dominic’s father, only to leave him, alone and crying, as soon as humanly possible. Such a limited act of decency doesn’t differ much from how Pádraic lends a hand to Dominic after he is severely beaten by his dad only to later return him to a life of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. In the end, the key to understanding the reason behind the rift between Colm and Pádraic lies in understanding the latter’s feelings towards Dominic. And if you’re into picking sides, who you support in the Colm/Pádraic debacle should also be associated with what you think about Dominic.

Dominic’s Demise Represents the Death of Innocence in ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’

Dominic is a kind of recurring character in small-town fiction: he’s the village idiot. However, The Banshees of Inisherin is a movie way too sensitive to simply point at the village idiot and laugh. Instead, McDonagh understands the tragedy of the Dominics of the world. It’s not just that he’s not smart or that he bothers people wherever he goes, but that he is completely shunned by his community, which, in turn, leaves him vulnerable to all kinds of indignities. In turn, these abuses shape his view of the world in a way that he can’t be anything but an outcast, as he learns to behave in ways that are not deemed socially acceptable. Keoghan also infuses the character with new layers, his eyes betraying an ever-present sadness and his mannerisms indicating that Dominic’s so-called dimness might also be related to a neurological or psychiatric disorder.

However, despite being such a misunderstood character in such a cruel world, Dominic still preserves a level of kindness and innocence. He shouts offenses at the people playing music at the pub, but he’s horrified to learn that Pádraic lied to a man about his father’s death to drive him away from Colm. He asks Siobhán invasive questions, but he still believes that he is worthy of being loved by her — not because he has too high of an opinion of himself, but because he, like anyone else, must be worthy of love.

Dominic and Siobhán Are Mirrors for Pádraic and Colm

And, once again, we are led to draw parallels between Dominic and Pádraic. The Banshees of Inisherin constantly calls attention to the similarities between Colm and Siobhán, two deep-in-thought souls trapped in a world too small for them. It is implied that should Siobhán stay behind in Inisherin, she would one day become just as bitter as Colm. So, Dominic’s belief that he could be loved by Siobhan corresponds to Pádraic’s hope that Colm will one day see the good in him again. Dominic is the personification of everything that Pádraic is in the beginning of The Banshees of Inisherin. Thus, it is no coincidence that the revelation of his death comes at the same time in the story in which Pádraic decides to act on his rage, setting fire to Colm’s house as payback for Jenny’s death. Dominic’s death is a representation of the death of everything that is good and decent in Pádraic.

The Banshees of Inisherin never quite makes it clear how Dominic dies. It merely shows us his drowned body being taken out of the lake. In a letter to Siobhán, Pádraic says that it was some kind of weird accident, that Dominic must’ve slipped, and that is without a doubt the official version that made the rounds in Inisherin. After all, how could someone with no inner life such as Dominic even consider suicide? Does he even understand pain? These are surely the questions that permeate the minds of the islanders. What no one wants to admit is that, yes, he does understand pain, and thus, is able to understand all the abuse that is directed towards him. When Siobhán tells him, as kindly as she can, that she will never be able to love a boy like him, he understands his loneliness and leaves to do something by the lake. Is this “something” taking his own life? The movie never tells us for sure.

Still, in the end, it doesn’t matter whether Dominic died by suicide or just fell into the lake, because his death represents the death of innocence in The Banshees of Inisherin, and innocence dies both by accident and by conscious action. Pádraic didn’t choose to become evil, he was driven to it by a series of events out of his control, but he did make a choice to burn down Colm’s house. Likewise, Inisherin never chose to become a village completely cut off from the events of the world, watching from afar a war that they don’t quite understand anymore. Nevertheless, people’s pettiness and cruelty are also a choice. They could, for instance, choose to be nicer to Dominic, and choose the kindness that Pádraic champions through most of the film. Instead, they pick the other route and let their innocence drown.

The Banshees of Inisherin is available to watch on Max in the U.S.

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