Skintown review – Northern Irish scamps rave their Troubles away

<p>Catholics and Protestants find E-fuelled common ground at a hallowed Portrush club in Ciarán McMenamin’s adaptation of his own 2018 novel</p><p>Derry Girls meets Human Traffic in this spirited, larky and at times poignant period piece about raving and drug dealing scamps in Northern Ireland in the 1990s. It doesn’t go quite so far as to suggest that the social revolution that MDMA engendered in youth culture and spread to the rest of the UK in that decade played a <em>causal</em> role in the Northern Irish peace process – the way some people suggest ecstasy put a stop to football hooliganism, for example. But it does note the coincidence of the timing.</p><p>The centrepiece of the film is a club night and beachside afterparty at which Carl Cox DJs and “Catholics and Protestants come together and dance, all juiced up on vitamin E” – on the same day in August 1994 that the IRA announces an end to hostilities. At the afterparty, our heroes from the Catholic side of Enniskillen – “Skintown” to the locals – get loved-up and giggly with a British squaddie, and all their troubles, ie <em>the</em> Troubles, seem to melt away. “I love Brits,” one says with a spliff in his mouth. “I love the IRA. I love the RUC … If you love them, you defuse them, they have no reason to fight you.”</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/aug/17/skintown-review-northern-ireland-troubles-youth-rave">Continue reading...</a>