Just this Once: Urban Ireland in film

By focusing on the city ofDublin as both setting and character, Once, written and directed by Dublin native John Carney, portrays urban Ireland in the global context. Using a series of replacements - replacing population loss with in-migration, and replacing parochial ideals with multicultural ones - the filmre-places Dublin, both representing the city it has become and providing space for continuing growth and change. For Dublin, as elsewhere, change enters as global flows of information and people become part of the city. Rather than conforming to the traditional global power of American culture, Bord Scannán na hÉ ireann (Irish Film Board) is striking its own global poses, producing and distributing films that construct an urban Irishness for international audiences. Inmy article, I examine howthis award-winning Irish filmconstructs Irish urban identity in the face of globalism's cultural flattening.