‘Pray for Our Sinners’ set for preview screening in Navan

Navan filmmaker's Sinead O'Shea's 'Pray for Our Sinners', looking at the brutal era of the De La Salle Brothers in Navan, and the mother and baby home treatment of young mothers in the 1960s and '70s, is to have a special preview screening in Navan this month.

The film's theatrical release throughout the country, including at The Arc in Navan, is on Friday 21st April, and the Navan cinema will have a special preview screening on Tuesday 18th April, with a panel of director Sinéad O'Shea and Dr Mary Randles, whose late husband, Dr Paddy Randles, drew attention to the De La Salle cruelty, and who with her husband helped many young mothers to keep their babies, when religious orders were planning to adopt them out after birth.

'Pray for Our Sinners' documents Sinead O Shea’s return to her hometown in Navan in search of "those who fought against the Catholic Church and discovers the ways in which local people found a way to resist". It is described as a film of unexpected twists as it chooses to shine a light on those who attempted to stand up to the church in a quiet but deeply moving resistance.

It was while Sinead was interviewing Dr Randles about her late husband that the State report into the mother and baby homes was published, leading the filmmaker down a different path and exploring the involvement and knowledge of local clergy in both the De La Salle and mother and baby situations. The film is not a straightforward narrative of sinners and victims. The story which emerges is a nuanced account of Catholicism and its role in Irish life. It focuses on the tradition of silence in Ireland and how difficult it has been for the people from the town to articulate the suffering they endured.

It is through old friendships and neighbourly connections that we hear previously untold testimonies from mother and baby homes, and stories from within school classrooms about corporal punishment. By taking such a personal approach, Sinéad has crafted a fresh account of how Catholicism wielded such power in Ireland since it gained independence.

Through the voices of its gently heroic characters, Pray for Our Sinners depicts a society full of love, hope and understanding, Sinead says.

“I am very proud to be sharing these stories of resilience and resistance. I hope they provide insights into Irish life and draw attention to the continuing issues caused by the relationship between Church and State here."

"I’ve done some difficult things in my work before," she says. "I went to Iran on my own and reported from there. I was the first person to film within Eritrea for a decade when I went undercover and I spent five years filming with paramilitaries in Northern Ireland for my first feature, 'A Mother Brings Her Son To Be Shot'. Yet, making a film from my hometown has been my most challenging project to date.

" It’s tough to express critical things about people and places you know well. As I say in 'Pray For Our Sinners', I don’t want to make life difficult for people and I don’t want there to be consequences for my family who live there still. I also feel a kind of protectiveness towards my hometown even though I left when I was 17 and often felt alienated while there. Outsiders may think it seems provincial but there can be an integrity to life in a small town that you don’t always find in bigger places or abroad. The pretensions in even a city like Dublin can be breathtaking. There was very little grandiosity in Navan when I was growing up.

"On the other hand, I’m well aware also that the silences of place allowed too many things to go unsaid. It made life very hard for me when I was young. It was truly unbearable at times for Betty, Norman, Mary and Ethna (who are interviewed in the film). Plus the Church had enough grandiosity for all of us. I hope this internal conflict has informed Pray For Our Sinners. The aim was to make a nuanced portrait and explain how difficult it was for people to resist the status quo. All over Ireland we are recovering from a very dark past. Some terrible things happened in Navan and it serves as a microcosm of what can go wrong. Perhaps we can provide an example to the rest of the world of what happens when State works too closely with the Church.

'Pray For Our Sinners' is directed by Sinéad O’Shea, produced by Sinéad O’Shea and Maya Derrington with Katie Holly serving as executive producer. The film was financed by Screen Ireland, and it was screened at the Dublin International Film Festival. The film received its world premiere last year at the 47th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), and went on to win several awards on its run across the US, including the Best Documentary awards at the Hamptons International Film Festival and Chicago International Film Festival.