Resistance (miniseries)


Resistance is a 2019 television miniseries written by Colin Teevan for Irish broadcaster RTÉ, dramatising the events surrounding the Irish War of Independence.
Set during the time of Bloody Sunday in 1920, it is a sequel to the 2016 miniseries, Rebellion, which was set during the 1916 Easter Rising.

Production

Filming began in October 2016.

Cast

Characters returning from ''Rebellion''

Reception

The first episode was criticised for departure from historical fact; Teevan had already resigned himself to such, he admitted in an interview with The Irish Times.
The Irish Catholic criticised what they called the "nasty nuns" subplot; in the historical event that the adoption storyline was based on, Josephine Marchment Brown, a widow working in Victoria Barracks, Cork lost custody of her son to her in-laws who took the boy to Wales. The IRA kidnapped the boy back for her in return for her passing information to them. Foreign adoptions from mother-and-baby homes, of the kind depicted in Resistance, did not begin until the 1940s.
Chris Wasser of the Irish Independent awarded the first episode three stars, saying "What we have here is a reasonably capable and competent drama that, though rough around the edges, suggests we may be in for a stronger and tighter run than last time. It isn’t nearly as vital or as thrilling as it needs to be, and Catherine Morshead’s flat direction doesn’t help. But there is something here."
Website IrishCentral was more positive, saying "The first episode of Resistance is deliciously plotted with loyalty, betrayal, irony, but most of all, the bravery of ordinary Dubliners taking on the greatest intelligence service in the world and, as history tells us, eventually winning. Resistance is not to be missed."