The Dawning 1988

Angus Barrie, an Irish Republican Army member, Anthony Hopkins, is seen hiking through rugged hills until he reaches a lonely beach where a small hut sits tucked away. On the same coast, Nancy Gulliver, Rebecca Pidgeon, has just left school and marks her birthday by burning her books in a burst of carefree happiness. Her Aunt Mary, Jean Simmons, has invited Harry over for tea, and Nancy’s feelings for him seem bright at first, only to be unsettled by his behavior with another girl, which reveals that her love was more childish infatuation than lasting tenderness.

One day, Nancy goes down to the beach and notices that her hut has been slept in; she leaves a note requesting that it be left alone. Soon after, Barrie approaches her, and the two develop a relationship, even though she does not fully understand the danger he faces as one of the early members of a movement that became the IRA and as someone on the run from the authorities. Nancy grows fond of Barrie and dubs him Cassius — a name she uses with a nod to a famous line about a lean and hungry look.

After Barrie asks her to pass on a message to a colleague, several Officers of the British Army are gunned down at a horse race show. Later, Captain Rankin, Adrian Dunbar of the Black and Tans, comes to the family home and asks if anyone knows where Cassius is. Suspicion grows when Nancy’s grandfather, Trevor Howard, says he saw her talking to a man on the beach. She denies knowledge of any such meeting. When the visitors depart, Nancy hurries to the hut to tell Barrie to flee, only to find that he has already packed.

As they step outside together, a light sweeps over them and the Black and Tans close in. Barrie is gunned down, a brutal moment that leaves Nancy deeply distressed. She returns home, now older and wiser, carrying the weight of what she has learned about love, loyalty, and the perilous world around them.