In 2008 three Parish Priests from Northern Ireland hit the headlines when they signed a three album recording contract with Sony Epic Records for £1.4 million. Director Jane Magowan introduces her new RTÉ One documentary on an unlikely Irish singing sensation - watch The Priests: Don't Give up The Day Job? now via RTÉ Player.
When I began work in this film I knew a little about The Priests, brothers Eugene and Martin O’Hagan and their friend David Delargy, parish priests from Northern Ireland plucked from obscurity by Sony Records in 2008 and given a million-pound recording contract.
It made for great headlines,but I wondered what else there was to tell.
On my first day at work I phoned The Priests' manager Sam Wright, and that’s when I got an inkling of what their story and this documentary was all about. A Londoner, the music business runs in Sam’s veins - she’s worked with everyone from Michael Jackson to Eminem. Her world and that of Fathers Martin, Eugene and David could not have been more different. When she first met them in 2008 Sam admits she didn’t know how to address a priest, so she bowed and curtsied, much to their amusement.
This collision of the two very different worlds fascinated me and set the tone for the structure and the way we edited the documentary.
From meeting Fathers Eugene, David and Martin and talking with the record executives who signed them back in 2008 it became apparent that we were blessed not only with an incredible story, but wonderful storytellers.
We filmed sit-down interviews with all our contributors. These form the spine of the film, telling the back story of how The Priests came to be signed to Sony, how they managed to juggle tours and concerts with Parish duties and charmed the most hard-to-please moguls of the music business.
Then we filmed with Fathers Martin, Eugene and David in their day jobs as they visited the elderly, administered baptisms and celebrated mass. It allowed us to get to know them better and discover why after 17 years they are calling it quits as The Priests.
One of the highlights of the shoot for me was taking The Priests back to the boarding school, a minor seminary, where they started singing together in 1974. I had a plan for what I wanted to film with them but from the moment they jumped up on the stage in the school hall and broke into song - one of the Gilbert and Sullivan Operettas they performed as schoolboys - I knew all we had to do was capture the moment as they laughed and sang and reminisced. There is a lot of laughter in this film but the career of The Priests hasn’t all been easy.
The Priests were promoting their albums at a time when clerical abuse in Ireland was hitting the headlines. I felt this was something we had to address in the film. Fathers Eugene, David and Martin were very honest about what it was like to be the face of the Roman Catholic Church at that time, and how they struggled to come to terms with the terrible things that had happened.
The story of The Priests really is remarkable, one that I’ve been genuinely privileged to tell.
The Priests: Don't Give up The Day Job?, RTÉ One, April 20th at 6.30pm - watch back via RTÉ Player.
