QDoesn't Eli have his history wrong in 'Nights of Ballygran'?
AYes but it may be deliberate on the part of the writers. In his speech Eli blames the European potato famine which ravaged Ireland in the 1840s on Oliver Cromwell who battled Irish Royalists as part of the 'War of the Three Kingdoms' in the 1640s. However this may have been an intentional mistake introduced in the script to demonstrate the extent of Eli's ignorance compared to Nucky.
QHow accurate is the depiction of Nucky's trip to Ireland?
AExtremely so. Contemporary Ireland was wracked by political/sectarian violence over the country's future following the 1912 Home Rule Bill which aimed to give it progressive independence from the rest of the British Isles. Pro-Republican Irish Americans such as Nucky did indeed provide roughly 150 Thompson submachine guns to the IRA but nearly 500 more were captured by the US authorities leaving New York docks after being betrayed by documents captured from IRA leader Michael Collins. Just as shown in the series Irish republicans rapidly descended into internecine warfare over the terms of the eventual truce with the British government culminating in all out civil war. The 2 policemen wearing Tam O'Shanters (berets with a bobble in the middle) on the Belfast docks when Nucky arrives are the 'Auxies' (Auxillaries), an elite anti-terrorist force raised from ex-Great War officers who became renown for their vigilante killing of Irish republicans and reprisal destruction of their property. They are often referred to as 'Black and Tans' (after a famous Irish foxhunt due to their mix of military and police uniforms) although the term is normally applied to non-commissioned ex-servicemen recruited into the Royal Irish Constabulary.
QHow effective was Prohibition?
AAs the show accurately depicts, not very. The Volstead Act (the federal law banning alcohol enabled by the 18th Amendment) was to be enforced by only 1,520 federal agents tasked with covering the whole of the United States. This was only one agent per 70,000 people and thus wholly inadequate to either enforce the 18th Amendment within society or control America's vast coastline and huge unguarded borders with Mexico and Canada. What's more the act itself was riddled with loopholes, people were allowed to quite legally brew wine and cider for consumption at home whilst doctors were allowed to prescribe alcohol for medicinal purposes and clergymen for religious sacraments, legal technicalities which were extensively exploited and abused. Furthermore it was not actually illegal to drink alcohol, only to sell it, transport it or manufacture beer/spirits, allowing many people to quite legitimately consume whatever they had stockpiled in the period between the act passing in October 1919 and becoming law in January 1920.
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