The statistics are stark.
The average age of priests in Ireland is now over 70 – for nuns, it’s over 80 – and the supply of vocations to religious life has slowed to a trickle.
In a pair of authored films, actor and comedian, Ardal O’Hanlon, and writer and broadcaster, Dearbhail McDonald, explore the role of Catholic clergy and religious sisters in Irish life and ask, What if these are the last priests and nuns in Ireland?
Ireland has had a dwindling number of Catholic clergy since the 1960s, but, over the last thirty years, a litany of scandals has given rise to public disillusionment and frequent negative media coverage of the ones who remain.
In a country where, in living memory, clergy and religious sisters ran, not only parishes, but schools, hospitals, housing and social services, and where practically every family would once proudly boast of having a priest or a nun, religious vocations have now all but dried-up.
The average age of Catholic priests in Ireland is now over 70 – for nuns, it’s over 80 – with many working way beyond normal retirement age, because there are insufficient numbers coming through to replace them.
If those trends continue, then, without urgent remedy, both professions appear to be in terminal decline.
That is the context and spur for these two authored documentaries, in which Ardal O’Hanlon and Dearbhail McDonald – both educated by priests and nuns – examine how Catholic clergy influenced every aspect of society in Ireland and the diaspora, while considering what we could be losing, if religious vocations continue to decline.
Neither an elegy nor an assault, the series is a compelling, thought-provoking and often deeply moving exploration of the unique role played by priests and nuns in Irish life.
EPISODE 1 - THE LAST PRIESTS IN IRELAND
SYNOPSIS
Actor and comedian Ardal O’Hanlon examines the role of the clergy in Irish life to see how they might have shaped our lives for better or for worse.
Actor and comedian Ardal O’Hanlon examines the role of Catholic priests in Irish life, from earliest times to the present day, to see how they shaped Irish lives for better or for worse.
Thirty years of secularisation and scandals, combined with increasingly negative media coverage and public disillusionment, have contributed to a drastic decline in religious vocations.
Now, as an increasingly elderly population of priests and nuns retires or dies, there are not nearly enough new vocations to replace them.
The future looks stark for the traditional, highly clerical model of Irish Catholicism.
But does that matter?
Ardal O’Hanlon, who was raised in a typically devout Catholic family and educated by priests, asks what we would be losing, if the present generation of Irish priests really were the last.
Who, if anyone, would perform their function in Irish society – their moral influence, their social contribution, their role in so many people’s rituals of “hatching, matching and dispatching”? Or could we do without them?
Neither an elegy nor an assault, the documentary is an engaging, thought-provoking and compelling look at the unique role and contribution of Catholic priests in Irish life.
EPISODE 2 - THE LAST NUNS IN IRELAND
SYNOPSIS
Broadcaster Dearbhail McDonald examines the role of nuns in Ireland to see how they have shaped Irish lives, including her own, for better or for worse. If these really are “The Last Nuns in Ireland”, will we miss them?
The statistics are stark.
The average age of nuns in Ireland is now over 80 – and the supply of vocations to religious life has slowed to a trickle. Convent-educated journalist and broadcaster Dearbhail McDonald, examines the role of female religious sisters in Ireland, from earliest times to the present day, to see how they have shaped Irish lives – for better or for worse.
Thirty years of secularisation and scandals, combined with public disillusionment and negative media coverage, have contributed to a drastic decline in religious vocations.
This is the context and spur for the film, authored by Dearbhail, who cut her teeth as a young journalist reporting on the clerical and institutional abuse scandals.
In a society where “the nuns” once ran practically every element of our education, healthcare and social services, she asks herself if she is ready to look at their contribution in the round?
Dearbhail starts her journey in her home town of Newry where she spent 14 years at two local schools run by the Order of St Clare.
Today her primary school is a shell of its former self awaiting demolition and redevelopment for housing – just one of many such convent schools around Ireland which are awaiting a similar fate.
As she makes her way around the country meeting a combination of religious and academics, she gains a deeper insight into the circumstances in which nuns and sisters came to be so firmly embedded in the lives of towns and villages – in Ireland as well as abroad.
However, nuns were also linked to the Church related scandals which emerged in the 1990s and 2000s and this is the legacy which Dearbhail struggles with.
Speaking on camera for the first time, several sisters tell their side of those controversies – their shock and dismay at learning about these scandals, the challenges to their own faith and how they have had to deal with negative perceptions of their legacy to Irish society.
Some sisters feel that religious life is at an end whilst others are convinced there will always be a place for nuns in Irish society.
For Dearbhail, this process makes her examine her own preconceptions of religious life and wonder how we can navigate current and future flashpoints involving the State and the Catholic Church in Ireland.
“I have spent a significant part of my own vocation as a journalist criticising ‘the nuns’ and the Catholic Church’s once powerful hold over Irish society”, said McDonald.
“But this is a way of life that could be gone in 10 or 15 years’ time. This journey forced me to revise many of my own prejudices about women in religious life. We cannot avoid our shared history, but we do need to find ways to navigate the complicated relationships between Church and State in the future. Exploring the lives of ‘the nuns’ has helped me reflect on the need for those important conversations.”
Neither an elegy nor an assault, the documentary is a candid, compelling, thought-provoking and, at times, deeply moving examination of the role of Catholic religious sisters in Irish life.
The Last Nuns in Ireland is a Scratch Films production for RTÉ made with the support from the Sound & Vision Fund of Coimisiún na Meán.
Episode one, The Last Priests in Ireland airs Mon Jan 15th at 9.35pm and episode two The Last Nuns In Ireland airs Tues Jan 16th at 10.15pm.