'I hope it broadens people's horizons': Late Fr Con and Fr McNamara feature in new film

A documentary featuring Catholic priests discussing confession may not initially appeal to everyone, but Alex Fegan’s Sins of Ireland is a revelatory film that unveils a different side to the Catholic Church.

It introduces fifteen Irish priests of different ages and backgrounds who openly share their perspectives on the harm caused by the institution’s troubled history in Ireland through the lens of confession.

Fegan, who previously brought us the insightful documentaries Older Than Older and The Irish Pub, has a knack for understanding things that are intrinsically Irish. Regardless of your faith, Catholic priests are integral to society despite dwindling numbers. Many non-practising people still baptise their children and continue with the trappings of faith.

During his son’s first confession, Fegan began to consider the role confession plays in Irish society.

“My son was making his first confession, and I couldn’t believe it was still happening. My first reaction was, why are we asking our kids to go to a priest and confess their sins? Then I started thinking about honest introspection, which no longer seems to happen; everyone is more interested in looking outwards. It was the end of the first Trump presidency, and people were going more to extremes, and it made me wonder if it would be healthy if we started looking at ourselves again.”

Fegan says he began to wonder what would happen if he asked priests to look at themselves.

“The confessional box was where you’re supposed to go in, say where you’re falling short, and then try and make a bit of a change, but it became more about guilt and shame, and as some of the priests mention, it became a place of danger, particularly for women.

"I reached out to fifteen priests; my only criteria were that they were hearing confessions, and I wanted to get a good spread from across the country and to hear their honest views.”

The documentary features two priests with strong Cork connections, who both sadly ed away shortly after filming had ended.

Father Con Cronin, who was well-known for his sense of humour and once famously did the floss dance at his parish church during First Holy Communion in age West, tragically died saving the life of a friend in a bus accident when the driver suffered a cardiac episode in 2021.

Fegan has fond memories of his time with Fr Con during filming.

“Fr Con was one of the few priests I stayed in touch with from the documentary. He once took me to a pub in age West. Father Con was unbelievable. We got in a car and drove over to Cobh to the church, but everywhere we went, people were waving at him, and he was beeping at people he knew. He couldn’t drive two minutes up the road without a wave. He was like a celebrity in age West.”

There is a scene in the documentary, during the pandemic lockdown, where Fr Con practices mass from the front door of his house. Fegan says Fr Con was a character who was very much loved by his parishioners.

“He was such a character, and he was so warm. We filmed while he said mass outside his house. There were two kids there, and they were eating ice cream at nine o’clock in the morning and then he had tea and biscuits for everyone afterwards. He was the type of priest who was in it for all the right reasons.”

Fr Kevin McNamara, who served on the Western Road for almost a decade, is also prominently featured in the documentary. He has sadly since died of illness, and Fegan says, Like Fr Con, Fr Kevin had a great sense of humour.

Filming was interrupted by the pandemic, but Fegan managed to continue the shoot. During the lockdown, priests found new and innovative ways of celebrating mass and hearing confessions. We see priests using social media to say prayers and broadcast mass. Fegan says it was interesting to see an ancient tradition adapt to modern ways of doing things.

“When covid shut everything down, priests had to adapt and change, which became the theme of the film. Can this ancient thing so intrenched in its ways change?

“Using technology shows that anything’s possible. One of the ideas put forward by the priests is that a smaller church on its knees has greater potential than a powerful one on a throne.

“Everyone I spoke to is horrified by the past actions of the church, and they hope it’s not too late to bring people back to the faith.”

The filmmaker says that he was a sceptic about the Catholic Church but that a documentarian’s job is to find the nuance.

“A documentary is an opportunity to look at something in more detail. Yes, it was 90% dreadful, but somewhere in the dirty water, maybe the baby has been thrown out. It is our job to find that.”

Fegan, who worked as a solicitor with GJ Moloney Solicitors in Cork before becoming a filmmaker, will hold question-and-answer sessions following some screenings of his documentary.

He will be at the Arc Cinema on April 24 to discuss the film and hopes his message is clear.

“I hope it broadens people’s horizons, even just a tiny bit. I am not saying that in a preachy way, but it is a chance to look at something in a way you might not have done before.”