Episode 3
Jimmy springs Joey from the army barracks where he’s held captive. Government auditor Saunders advises Harry and his fellow board members that their bank is insolvent and he’ll shut them down unless Harry provides details of the companies he’s recently made large loans to.
Harry blames Constance for putting him in an impossible situation. If he shares Maurice’s details with Saunders, Sinn Féin will have him killed. If he stands up to the auditor they’ll be bankrupted.
At Dublin Castle Eithne’s accusations that her colleague Diarmuid was killed in custody fall on deaf ears, but Robbie impresses her with his support. The pair later wake her former colleague and wind up together.
Jimmy gets Joey back to his Minnie’s tenement where Doctor Moore implores him to have mercy on Ursula, who he reveals is his sister-in-law, and let her see her son is safe. Jimmy meets Ursula at the Squad HQ and drives her in to the Dublin Mountains where he blindfolds her and takes her to the farm raided by Patrick and his men. Ursula is briefly reunited with Tomás while Jimmy waits outside.
Senator Shea tracks down Harry to the apartment of club singer Josephine, where he warns him that dealing with Saunders is only part of the solution; he loans him a bag of dollars to cover the shortfall at the bank. Winter feeds Ursula information, but is he on to her?
Series synopsis
From writer Colin Teevan, Resistance follows on from Rebellion, which aired in 2016, moving on to focus on the War of Independence. The series features Jimmy Mahon (Brian Gleeson), who works as a hitman for Michael Collins, while his brother Patrick (David Wilmot) is working for the British as an RIC officer. It marks the centenary of the War of Independence in Ireland.
The narrative thread that holds the series together is a plot by the Irish (fictional, but based on what was to follow) to get rid the British administration and their system of spies and secret police at Dublin Castle. This world is one of shadows and echoes; double-agents and unreliable narrators at a time of high tension, fear and anxiety.
“The story has moved forward to November 1920 and we are right at the centre of the War of Independence,” said series producer Catherine Magee. “What we were interested in looking at was not the ‘great man’ version of Irish history, but what it was like to be caught up in events of the time.
“Filming period is always a really big challenge, this period was more about guerrilla warfare, it was bloody and it was brutal, there was brutal repression by the Black and Tans. We filmed in the winter which added to the atmosphere.”
Ursula Sweeney (Simone Kirby) is working as a cryptologist in Dublin Castle, while her estranged sister Agnes Moore (Natasha O’Keeffe) is working in the Sinn Féin midnight courts. Eithne Drury (Aoife Duffin) must learn who to trust as a journalist for Sinn Féin’s propaganda department.
The fictional characters occasionally cross paths with historical figures including Collins (Gavin Drea), British Spymaster General Ormonde Winter (Paul Ritter) , his Civil Service opposite number Mark Sturgis (Tom Bennett), and Sinn Féin founder Arthur Griffith (Andrew Bennett). Jordanne Jones, who also starred in Rebellion, returns as Minnie Mahon. Catherine Walker plays Constance Butler and Aoibhinn McGinnity stars as Josephine Carmichael.
Brian Gleeson on playing Jimmy Mahon
“Jimmy’s an Irish volunteer who is out on Easter week with the Irish citizen army. He fought in the Rising and in Resistance, it’s four years later at the height of the War of Independence. It helps having been already having a character there. It’s great, it means that you really get to go deep with it and it’s very rewarding in that sense.”
“Really what the show addresses is that fog of war aspect of the conflict with informants and spies, it was all very murky and there’s no good guys or bad guys, it’s just about people. It’s very pacey and very snappy and it’s just more of a thriller I think.”
Simone Kirby on playing Ursula Sweeney
“Urusla is highly intelligent and sort of a tunnel visioned person, which makes her socially not great. In her personal life, she has had a tragedy a few years before when her fiance was killed when he went to war. She was pregnant and she wasn’t married so she had to give her child up. That’s where we find her in the first episode, she’s about to lose her child to an American person.
I love her because she’s not great with people, which is a really interesting part to play. It’s that weird time in the middle after the Rising and before the Treaty where people kind of went underground. There are people like Ursula who doesn’t choose to be one side or the other. To find herself suddenly in between the IRA and Dublin Castle is not somewhere she really thought she would ever be.”