Journalist Aoife Moore explores Pray For Our Sinners, a powerful new documentary telling the stories of everyday Irish citizens resisting the status quo against extraordinary odds.
A film about the quiet power of people, the deafening power of the church and the resistance of those who refused to be beaten into submission; Pray For Our Sinners is in cinemas from April 21.
Sinead O'Shea’s newest documentary takes her back to her hometown of Navan, Co. Meath in search of those who opposed the "empire designated to punishing girls", as described by one of the film’s heroes, Dr Mary Randles.
Randles, now a widow and a grandmother was one half of a remarkable couple, who, along with her husband Dr Paddy Randles, kept women out of the Mother and Baby Homes. The Randles’ were some of the first healthcare workers to distribute contraception when it was still banned in Ireland.
Watch the trailer for Pray For Our Sinners
Although Ireland’s history of institutionalising those they considered 'other’ is well documented throughout, it is the personal stories that make the film stunning and tragic.
Randles often casually describes situations in which she and her husband broke the law, or saved a life, directly to the camera, in her sitting room, like she is describing the weather.
She describes how her husband directly intervened in one girl’s situation preventing her baby being adopted or the many other women who stayed in their home, hidden from those who sought to send them away. She fondly remembers the man they let borrow their car to visit his pregnant girlfriend sent to an institution, all in a days work.
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Listen: Filmmaker Sinead O'Shea and Dr Mary Randles talk to The Brendan O'Connor Show
The other women who stood in defiance of the church are Betty, pregnant and unwed was sent to a mother-and-baby home to give birth, and Ethna, who refused to give her baby away, taking the child the arms of the nuns herself. Their stories are infuriating due to their familiarity, it is acknowledged some version of these experiences are mirrored all across Ireland.
The other pillar of the story is Dr Paddy Randles and his campaign against corporal punishment in Irish schools. We meet Norman, an ambidextrous young boy who suffered severe corporal punishment for using his left hand. His mother Florence, in her own quiet bravery along with Dr Randles, took the fight to the door of the Christian Brothers by appearing in media in England and America. They informed international audiences how the church were treating children in their care, because the Irish press refused to print it.
Norman left school at nine, the trauma of the punishment haunted him his entire life.
Watch a clip from Pray For Our Sinners
The film is gentle and uplifting in its deference to the strength of the interviewees. O’Shea’s closeness to the people and place of Navan is clear in the direction and the archive footage. She manages to pull no punches, while not only excoriating those who upheld a system of torture but reminds us that this happened in every town, city and village in Ireland. She reflects on her own views on morality as a small child that many of us will relate to, while questioning why the state allowed the Church to hold so much power over the population.
In recent years the Irish public has heard much about the horror of the institutions and Pray for Our Sinners offers a voice to those who resisted. It deftly documents how quiet bravery can change entire lives, offer hope, and keep families and communities together. It will be familiar to many of us, exactly why it’s so heart breaking.
Pray For Our Sinners is in selected cinemas nationwide from April 21
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
