Danielle Galligan: "We can only have individual heroes because of the support of a community around them"

When Irish star Danielle Galligan talks about her career, she tends to frame it less as a dramatic ascent and more as a balancing act. “Life is never one genre,” she says, with a smile. “It’s always magical and beautiful and stressful and overwhelming – everything, all at the same time.”

Danielle is not joking. Indeed, it is a fitting description for an actor whose recent work has ranged from enormously successful international productions like House Of Guinness – which has just been renewed for a second series – to intimate Irish storytelling like the film Lakelands, and popular series like Kin and The Walsh Sisters.

Danielle’s most recent film was Spilt Milk, Cara Loftus’s moving drama set in 1980s Dublin during the heroin crisis. As the local people realise that the problem is not of their making, but rather is a symptom of the failure of those in power to address poverty and deprivation among the capital’s most vulnerable communities, Spilt Milk ultimately becomes a story about collective power rather than individual heroism.

“The film really shows the triumph of community over individualism,” Danielle reflects. “We can only have individual heroes because of the support of a community around them.”

It is, as they say, a lesson to us all.

ART IS POLITICAL

It would, of course, be wrong to suggest that everything in the garden is rosy now in Ireland – but that there has been a hugely significant change since the dog days of the 1980s is irrefutable. Nowhere is this more evident than in the world of the arts, with Irish creatives making a huge impact across the world in music, literature and film, among other disciplines.

What is reassuring also is the extent to which Irish artists in general have stood out, as being brave enough to take a stand against unjust wars, and on behalf of those who are being attacked, brutalised and marginalised around the world.

The themes explored in Spilt Milk – collective action, political responsibility, and the power of storytelling – were, as it happens, also part of Galligan’s recent experience at the Berlin International Film Festival, where she was named as one of the European Shooting Stars. It was a moment for the young actor to consider just how far we have come collectively in Ireland.

“It was a dream come true for me,” Danielle has said. “I thought opportunities like this had passed me by, because of where I am in my career.

“But the bit that makes me really emotional is the fact that Ireland submits you! The talent and the quality of our storytelling and artistry is something that I hold in such high esteem – so to feel supported by all of that is amazing.”

Credit: Rhys Frampton

Amidst shared conversations with the other Shooting Stars about filmmaking, identity and politics, Galligan found herself reflecting on the position of Irish cinema within that broader landscape.

“I found myself feeling really proud of our industry in Ireland,” she says. “Talking about Screen Ireland, about the support we have for artists, even the Basic Income For The Arts – it made me realise how much infrastructure there is behind the moment that Irish talent is currently having internationally.”

Across the festival, artists were grappling with the question of whether art should be political – a debate that felt particularly urgent in the current climate in the US, the UK and Europe of escalating and increasingly authoritarian censorship.

The pride that Danielle felt about Ireland’s support for the arts could be extended to include not just the fact that Ireland remains a beacon of liberalism in its approach to culture and the arts, but also that it has led the way, alongside Spain, Slovenia and Norway, in opposing genocide in Gaza and in rejecting the Far Right thinking that has become almost mainstream in so much of Europe.

“There was a lot of discussion about the rise of fascism across Europe,” Galligan acknowledges. “Every country had something to say about that.”

While she describes herself as someone who tends to listen rather than to speak explicitly about politics, the experience made her think more deeply about the role of art.

“I’ve always instinctively thought that art is political,” she says, adding that film carries particular power because of its ability to reach wide audiences.

“Our job,” she concludes, “is to hold a mirror up to society.”

BEST IN THE WORLD

Danielle Galligan has no qualms about saying that identity is also political.

“You can only create from your own perspective,” she says, “and my perspective is that of an Irish woman. Sometimes just moving through the world in a female body can feel political.”

Ireland’s unique history also informs her belief in the importance of storytelling.

“I think we have a sense memory, as Irish people, of what it’s like to be colonised, of what it’s like to be erased, of what it’s like to have your culture and language taken from you,” she says firmly. “And the only way to keep the people alive is to continue to tell their stories.”

Spilt Milk

That sense of responsibility is also what makes films like Spilt Milk resonate with the present. Though set in the 1980s, the issues it explores – housing inequality, addiction, community neglect – remain familiar.

The good news is that Danielle Galligan ultimately returns to something far more hopeful: the idea that ordinary people, through small actions, can still change things. In Ireland, she points out, recent history has already proven that point. It is, in a sense, the ultimate tribute to the quality of our democracy – which, in turn, is a vital part of what makes Ireland one of the most attractive places on the planet to live, work and visit right now.

“I became a voter around the time of the marriage referendum and Repeal the 8th,” she says. “Those were grassroots movements. People handing out flyers thinking it might not make a difference – and then suddenly you have constitutional change.”

The lesson, she suggests, is simple.

“Every bit of change matters,” she says. “Every life saved matters. Stories can remind us of that power.”

And Irish stories are up there, among the best in the world...