Sins of Ireland, directed by Alex Fegan (Older Than Ireland, The Irish Pub ), will be released at cinemas around the country this Saturday, April 18, including the Eye Cinema and IMC Cinema in Galway.
The film is a portrait of Ireland through the lens of the confession box.
In Sins of Ireland, fifteen Irish priests who have long listened to the sins of others, offer their own confessional on the rise and fall of a sacrament that now epitomises the turbulent changes in faith and spirituality in contemporary Ireland.
The documentary is a nuanced and uncynical examination of Confession, as the priests themselves acknowledge how a rite meant to offer absolution and guidance had for many years become a tool of control and shame, with devastating consequences.
Yet Sins of Ireland also explores forgiveness - not as an easy resolution, but as a necessary reckoning with the past, and a gateway to spiritual redemption. In confronting their own failings and the sins of the church, these priests lay bare the complexities of remorse, accountability, and the possibility of reconciliation.
For Fegan, this was a documentary he felt he needed to make to learn more about where we have come from as a people, and where we are going.
“Making the film taught me many things about our past, myself and life itself. If people get even a small bit as much from watching Sins of Ireland as I did from making it, I will be delighted.”
Alex Fegan and contributor Fr Ray Flaherty from Headford will be doing a Q&A after the screening at the Eye Cinema on April 19 at 7pm.
Tickets €9.50/€12 from www.eyecinema.ie
