CONOR’S DOCUMENTARY TAKES FIRST PLACE IN INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL
PEGGY MCCARTHY’S STORY STRIKES HUGE CHORD WITH THE SPANISH, WINNING BIG IN EQUIVALENT OF BAFTAS
CONOR Keane’s much-lauded documentary examining one of the darkest stories from this country’s recent past has just won another major plaudit – this time in Spain.
RTÉ Documentary on One ‘In Shame, Love, In Shame’ was last week announced as the winner of the best International Radio Award in the Premios Ondas Awards - seen as Spain’s equivalent of the BAFTAs.
Now, Conor and his crew are off to Barcelona in weeks to collect the richly deserved reward for a documentary that left its audience reeling in August as it related a gruesome episode from Kerry’s recent past.
How a young unmarried mother came to be refused admission to not one but two hospitals as she so obviously presented as an emergency in the throes of a crisis labour said so much about the most toxic effects of Catholic Church hegemony on the people of Ireland in the 20th Century.
That was Peggy McCarthy’s story, as local taxi man John Guerin raced frantically between three hospitals – Listowel, Tralee and the ‘union’ in Killarney – in a vain attempt to get her help, with nuns on admission in both Listowel and Tralee closing the door on the pair for the simple fact she was unmarried and pregnant. Peggy died en route to Killarney in a shocking indictment of the Church not brought to wide attention until John’s son, playwright Tony Guerin, set it all out in his 2002 drama, Solo Run.
At the heart of Solo Run was the one positive from the grim tale: how the people of Listowel under John Guerin revolted against the local clergy when the parish priest sought to visit one last callous indignity on Peggy in death – by locking the church doors to her remains.
Led by John, Listowel people said ‘enough’ and made their anger known en masse until Canon Brennan had no choice but to allow a Christian burial. Thanks to Tony and Conor the story has been rescued in memory and it’s down to the people of North Kerry that ‘In Shame, Love, In Shame’ has proven such a winning piece, Conor said as he welcomed the news from Spain:
“This is fantastic. It was a story that needed to be told, a heartbreak for three generations of McCarthys. It just shows no story is too old or too local to be told to a global audience.
I”’m thrilled, but full credit has to go to the contributors to the documentary.
“Every single one of them was from within a few miles of Listowel. The eloquence of the English spoken in North Kerry was the golddust that made this documentary special. The Doc on One team added their special sauce, and we got a great programme.” The awards jury meanwhile said ‘ they set great store by the strength of a story which tells of major injustices suffered by the same Irish family.’