Silencing, liminality, and containment in contemporary cinema in Ireland

What does not respect borders, positions, rules,’ this thesis considers how cinema’s examination of the abject in cultural and personal contexts enables it to assume a significant role in the process that leads from traumatic rupture to reconciliation (Kristeva 4).<br><br>Key to this exploration of the representation of trauma in cinema in Ireland is the notion of liminal space. Liminal, stemming from the Latin word ‘limen’, meaning ‘a threshold’, may be broadly defined as a transitional place or period, a state of flux between two different states of being.

It can refer to spatial and physical thresholds, such as borders, shorelines, and doorways, and rites of passage and transition. Through an examination of the representation and intersection of physical liminal spaces, such as Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby Homes, Industrial Schools, Reformatory Schools, and Direct Provision Centres, the liminal legislative spaces in which such architectures of containment operate, and the othering and scapegoating mechanisms that constitute rites de passage whilst also perpetuating cyclical and transgenerational trauma, this thesis engages with contemporary cinema in Ireland to order to explore the ways in which liminal space has been used to both silence and restore voices to Ireland’s marginalised ‘Others’.<br>