Clones Film Festival

Through the voices of its gently heroic characters, Pray for Our Sinners depicts a society full of love, hope and understanding.

Saturday 28^th Oct. 6.45pm, The Courthouse -  Sponsored By The Noble Grape

• Director: Sinéad O’Shea
• 81 minutes,
• Ireland, 2022, 12A

Pray for our Sinners documents Sinéad O’Shea’s (A Mother Brings her Son to be Shot) return to her hometown in Navan in search of those who stood up against church abuse in the 1960s and 70s, and discovers how local people found ways to resist.

Not a straightforward narrative of sinners and victims, the story which emerges is a nuanced account of Catholicism and its role in Irish life. It focuses on the tradition of silence in Ireland and how difficult it has been for the people to articulate the suffering they endured.

Through the voices of its gently heroic characters, Pray for Our Sinners depicts a society full of love, hope and understanding.  

‘’O’Shea is a sympathetic, sensitive interviewer, and her quiet persistence is rewarded. Pray For Our Sinners is a backward glance from a more enlightened, progressive time, and O’Shea finds hope in how much Ireland has changed in recent years. Yet her film powerfully documents what happened within living memory, the trauma still experienced by those who survived it and the inspiration from an often invisible resistance who helped to bring about change‘’
-Allan Hunter, Screen International

“★★★★Pray for Our Sinners is a smaller story that connects directly with a tight community. Its power lies in its intimacy and, ultimately, in its cautious hopefulness. Things have changed.”
– Donald Clarke, The Irish Times