Yearly Archives: 2013

movieclub

What you may need to know:

1. Guests Of Another Nation is a 16mm independent film about the young Irish in London in the 1980s, originally broadcast by RTE back in 1989.

2. Synopsis: ‘Over 27 minutes, it locates various subjects as anything but the successful role models the Irish media at the time was selling as part of a need to be positive about emigration. Arguably far more accurately, it paints the Irish migrant in London more as a lost and lonely outsider driven by something other than economics. The tone is wistful, melancholic, unsettled. A time capsule in whose favour Ireland has once more unfortunately turned.’

3. Made by John Fleming and Mark Stewart. Shot over six short, dark and bloody cold days in December 1987.

4. And only crying out for a sequel.

00060085Good luck with that.

Martijn Leenheer and his family moved from Holland to a rural village in County Leitrim, Ireland, in search of a quieter town for raising their son, Finn.

An atheist, Leenheer was concerned about exposing his son to Church doctrine at the local Catholic school, and he chose to opt Finn out of the 30-minute religion class—a constitutional right afforded to all Irish parents.

Three months later, Leenheer was surprised to learn his son was still sitting in the class on most days, as well as reciting prayers in other parts of the school day. Leenheer contacted the principal to clarify things, but was repeatedly ignored, he said.

“We didn’t realize we chose the most rural bit of Ireland to live in,” said Leenheer. “We never thought it was going to be this serious, this in-your-face-religion.”

Leenheer’s insistence on opting his son out led to his family being ostracised in his community, he said. He pulled Finn out of the Catholic school, moved to a new neighborhood and enrolled him at an Educate Together school in Sligo…

 

A New Problem in Ireland: Where to Find a Non-Catholic School? (The Atlantic)

(Eamonn Farrell/Photocall Ireland)