Movie Review: The Miracle Club (2023)

The Miracle Club (2023) directed by Thaddeus O'Sullivan

The local parish in Ballygar, Ireland, is sponsoring a talent show whose first prize is two tickets on a trip to Lourdes, France. The show's organizer died just before the event but they keep it on in her memory. The organizer's estranged daughter Chrissy (Laura Linney) has come from America for the funeral, a surprise to everyone in town, especially Chrissy's childhood best friend Eileen (Kathy Bates). Chrissy finds an envelop from her mom with an apology for what caused their division and a ticket for the Lourdes trip. Initially, Chrissy does not want to go and the ticket winds up with Eileen, who secretly thinks she has breast cancer and hopes for a cure. A young mom (Agnes O'Casey) with a mute son has won the tickets and wants to take him to the shrine hoping to find a miraculous cure. Her husband does not want her to go, just like Eileen's husband. They both head off anyway along with Lily (Maggie Smith), an old lady still mourning the loss of her dead son who had a relationship with Chrissy. The story of their lives, their angers, and their regrets slowly unfolds during the trip to France and at Lourdes where things aren't quite what they expected.

The charming and intriguing premise is squandered as the movie moves along. Ballygar looks very stereotypical mid-1900s Ireland (the movie is set in 1967) as are the attitudes of most of the characters. They have a lot of anger underneath that comes out occasionally for dramatic effect. A lot of issues and old hurts are eventually resolved through the hardships of the journey more than from any miraculous occurrence in France. None of the characters (including the priest) have a genuine faith, they are just more or less nice people trying to satisfy their own needs, which may wind up helping others. The movie has some funny bits (the trailer falsely sells this as a comedy) but the story is not very inspiring. The actors are good in their roles. I just wish their characters were less superficial. They are in a better place when they return home without really earning it.

Not recommended.

Movie Review: Leap Year (2010)

Leap Year (2010) directed by Anand Tucker

Anna (Amy Adams) has been dating her boyfriend Jeremy (Adam Scott) for four years. She's a stager, setting up apartments or houses with furniture to make them look homey and desirable to potential buyers. She likes to plan out everything and leave nothing to luck. She's been hoping Jeremy will propose, especially since they are buying a ritzy Boston apartment together. She's so convinced that he will pop the question before his business trip to Dublin that she tells her dad (John Lithgow) and a friend who spotted Jeremy coming out of a swanky jewelers. At the fancy restaurant dinner that night, he pulls out a small box containing...earrings. She is disappointed, especially when he gets called away for work. Her dad tells her about the ancient Irish tradition where women can propose to men on February 29, which is coming up in a few days. That's how his grandparents got engaged. Anna is desperate enough to go to Ireland to take the situation into her own hands. Through traveling misadventures, she winds up in Dingle, Ireland, where she meets cantankerous pub owner Declan (Matthew Goode) who is desperate for cash and agrees to drive her to Dublin for 500 Euros. They have a lot of comic misadventures along the way. Will it lead them to fall in love, maybe, by the time they get to Dublin?

The plot is a fairly standard romantic comedy set up where the girl pines for one guy but eventually falls for a completely different guy who, at first appearance, does not seem like her type. The "opposites attract" trope plays out through the usual travel problems--missed trains, bluffing their way into a bed and breakfast by pretending to be married, cooking a meal together, crashing a wedding, etc. The comedy part has nothing that an avid movie-goer hasn't seen before, just the unbelievable premise (which a lot of the characters don't believe in either though according to wikipedia it was a real thing). The movie has no surprises to deliver. Adams's character is a little unlikeable at first but she subtly shifts into a more appealing person. The other actors do an okay job, though Lithgow is hardly in the movie, so he does not have quite enough time to flesh out his character. I found the movie mildly entertaining though probably won't watch it again unless someone else wanted to, or maybe for the next Leap Year when I've forgotten my opinion of the movie.

Mildly recommended, if you are in the mood and have a generous level of tolerance.

Irish Railroad Workers Museum, Baltimore

A growing museum in Baltimore is the Irish Railroad Workers Museum, right near the B&O Museum (naturally). It's set in row houses where the Irish lived just a few streets from the large train yard complex that made up the eastern end of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

Irish Railroad Workers Museum

Our tour started with a video overview of the history of the Irish coming to Baltimore (no pictures for the blog!). Then we went outside where a picture display shows the houses the Irish left behind when The Great Famine desolated their lives in the 1840s. Many fled their very modest homes and found passage to America, hoping for a new start. The ships were often called "coffin ships" because many died en route. American ports like Boston, New York, New Orleans, and Baltimore were the first stop for most of the Irish. The Irish in Baltimore settled in this neighborhood and many lived the American dream, working hard to improve their lives and achieving success.

Pictures of the journey

Evocative harp below the pictures

These row houses eventually fell into disrepair. The back of one of the houses even fell off! When the museum purchased the land, the builder said it would be expensive to redo the building in brick. They had the idea to make a glass wall that would show the interior of the house much like a doll house. 

The back of two houses

Back yards were not the play area for children back then. The yard was used for small live stock (chickens and such), vegetable gardens, and, since there was no indoor plumbing, the outhouse. 

A recreated outhouse?

The insides of the buildings needed a lot of work too. One wall shows where the original staircase was. The museum has since put in a more modern staircase on the other side.

Original masonry and angle of the stairs

The second floor has exhibits about the local church, St. Peter's, the Catholic Church for the Irish. It was also a social hub.

Second floor

Artifacts from the original church

The front end of the second floor has information about the work of James Feeley who owned one of the houses. He started at the B & O as a laborer in the 1860s. He worked hard and learned skills, eventually working as a boilermaker, building the large boilers used by steam engines. His sons also worked at the train yards.

Boilermaker information

Boilermaker tools

The top floor is a recreation of a "man cave" from back in the day. Often, men would entertain their fellows at home, much the way a pub would. They might have a bar, a table to play cards, and other entertainment. Women weren't allowed and priests from the parish did not come either.

The bar

A friendly game of poker

Game table

A little heat for the winter

After touring the first house, we went over to the neighbor house. The main floor shows a parlor where the woman of the family would be in charge. Back then, clothing was hand-made and sometimes even cloth itself was made at home starting with wool or cotton. The guide said that it could take a year to make one shirt!

Mrs. Feeley and the spinning wheel

The front parlor

Tea things set out

The kitchen was originally just a shallow fireplace. As Mr. Feeley became more successful, they were able to upgrade many things, including adding this multi-level stove that provided heat for the house and a lot of options for cooking and baking.

Multi-use appliance

Women were not allowed to work outside the home, so many times they would "take in washing" and clean the clothes of others.

Washing and ironing

As I said, the family became successful and would have good breakfasts, including luxury items like orange juice (the oranges were shipped up from Florida). Such a meal was a long way from the meals in Ireland--potato porridge for breakfast, potatoes and milk for lunch, and potato stew for dinner!

A nice breakfast

When the back wall of the house fell off, these shelves somehow remained standing. They would have been the kitchen's pantry but now are home to many family pictures and a few other historical items. 

Original shelves

As a prelude to the next floor, the guide told us about the hardships of trans-Atlantic travel. Passengers had few rights and many duties. Captains could and did make rules about when meals were and where people could be at certain times of the day. Ships had curfews and hard conditions.

A long list of rules

On the second floor, a sample of "coffin ship" bunks are shown. Often one family had to share one bunk. To maximize profits, ships were overloaded with passengers who had to fight for space and rations during the voyage. 

Bunks

Water and food storage

The house has several upstairs rooms, most used as bedrooms. 

Kids' bed with dolls

Before they had many kids, the Feeleys rented out rooms (another way to make money on the side), often with several gentlemen sharing one room. They would get a meal or two as part of the rental agreement.

A bed for two or three!

Homemade covers

The "sink"

The master bedroom is the largest upstairs room. The parents often shared their room with the youngest children.

Mrs. Feeley taking care of the baby

The homemade clothing meant that the family members did not have many outfits. Closets were little more then pegs on the wall for a Sunday outfit and a workday outfit. Mrs. Feeley had more to wear since she had maternity clothes too.

The closet

Wall decorations were minimal, often pictures taken out of magazines or advertisements.

The master fireplace

The museum has purchased more of the neighboring building and plans to expand the displays and create a genealogy center. The immigrant history of the Irish has many interesting stories that are well worth hearing and remembering.

Movie Review: The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) written and directed by Martin McDonagh

Lifelong friends Padraic (Collin Farrell) and Colm (Brendan Gleeson) live on the island of Inisherin off the coast of Ireland. They are more or less isolated from the rest of the world, seeing a bit of the civil war raging on the mainland (the movie is set in 1923). Colm ends the friendship abruptly one day, leaving Padraic at a loss for what to do with himself. He lives with his bookish sister Siobhan (Kerry Condon) on a small farm where he cares for the animals. After trying to talk to Colm, Padraic gets two things from his former friend. First, Colm says he finds Padraic boring and wants to do something more with his life, maybe write music. Second, Colm is so tired of Padraic that if Padraic bothers him again, Colm will cut off one of his own fingers and give it to Padraic. Being a stubborn Irish fellow, he gives all the appearance of being in deadly earnest.

Director McDonagh has made a career of squeezing every last drop of pathos and misery from his characters' situations (see In Bruges or Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri). This movie moves very slowly through its story, letting viewers ponder over what is going on and what will happen next. The island has a handful of odd characters who move both the plot and the themes forward. Padraic and Colm are both looking for meaning in their lives, for purpose in their existences. Other characters deal with similar problems in smaller ways. The bleakness is punctuated with many humorous moments, though I would be reluctant to call this a comedy. It's a bit excruciating but also fascinating.

Recommended, but not for the faint of heart or those low on patience.

Book Review: Swords Around the Cross--The Nine Years War by Timothy O'Donnell

 Swords Around the Cross--The Nine Years War: Ireland's Defense of Faith and Fatherland 1594-1603 by Timothy O'Donnell

The Irish have almost always been at odds with their neighbors to the east. The late 1500s saw a particularly hard oppression of the Irish by the United Kingdom under Queen Elizabeth. Red Hugh O'Donnell of Tirconnaill in the northwest and Hugh O'Neill of Tyrone in the north raised an army to fight against the British invaders. This book chronicles the Nine Years War, fought from 1594 to 1603. The conflict was not just about nationalism. England had just established the Anglican Church and wanted to impose their own system on other subjects. The Irish were fiercely Catholic and bristled under a foreign power that took their lands and their churches while requiring them to accept the queen as head of the church. The Irish appealed to the pope for moral authority to fight and to Spain for material resources to fight. They received both and spent nearly a decade fighting for their independence.

At the time, Ireland was still not united. Many different clans had authority over their regions; no central authority existed. O'Donnell and O'Neill established The Catholic Confederacy and worked to unite the various clans against their common enemy. The war raged on in various parts of the country. The Irish did well even with the unsteady support of Catholic Spain. The final major battle of the war was the Siege of Kinsale in 1601 and 1602. The Irish had a chance to smash a large English army but on the day of battle several things went wrong, resulting in a humbling loss. The armies retreated and the leaders were eventually driven from Ireland. 

The narrative is written in an exciting style and includes many extended quotes from the correspondence and writings of the people involved in the war. The book unabashedly takes the Catholic point of view, which gives the story a dramatic sweep and enables O'Donnell (the author) to take in the larger picture. The facts of what happened in Ireland aren't the only relevant ones. England spent a lot of their resources fighting this war, which meant they had much fewer to devote to conflicts on the European continent, where Protestants and Catholics were in conflict as well. Spain spent fewer resources while being involved in those other conflicts as well as their development of colonies in the New World. The Nine Years War was more than just a local conflict with an unhappy ending.

Recommended.

Book Review: Malachy McCourt's History of Ireland

Malachy McCourt's History of Ireland by Malachy McCourt

Irishman Malachy McCourt recounts the history of Ireland by writing mini-biographies of people throughout the past 2,500 years. He starts with legendary characters from B.C. times like Finn McCool (or Fionn Mac Cumaill, if you like the more Irish spelling). The book weighs a little heavier on more modern characters. The first half covers 400ish B.C. to the Great Famine in the 1840s. The second half covers the 1850s to 2000 (the book was published in 2004), ending with Bono from U2. The book covers the artistically significant as well as the historically significant.

McCourt is an entertaining storyteller and makes the people come to life. The island had lots of newcomers who more or less took over, usually by force. The natives constantly struggled for their independence; the new people integrated with the locals and became the next people to be disenfranchised by another wave of newcomers. Relations with England were always strained (England was the closest source of newcomers, I suppose). The "troubles" of the 1900s have both roots and mirror images throughout earlier centuries. The personal stories make the history more real and immediate. The homey writing style makes the book read more like stories from a pub rather than lectures on a campus.

The book suffers a bit from overlapping stories. The same events are told two or three times with only a little shift of emphasis. For example, the Easter Rising is described three separate times in fewer than twenty pages. He also has a chip on his shoulder about the Catholic Church, leading him to the silly claim that Saint Brigid was a bishop or to blame Irish misogyny on church influence, as if bad men can't come to misogyny on their own. Even with these flaws, the book is still an entertaining read.

Mildly recommended.

Movie Review: The Quiet Man (1952)

The Quiet Man (1952) directed by John Ford

Sean Thornton (John Wayne) returns from America to his birthplace, a small town called Innisfree in Ireland. He goes to buy the old homestead (his grandfather had been sent to Australia; his father went to America when he was a wee lad). The land and cottage are owned by the Widow Tillane. She is reluctant to sell until town bully Will Danaher (Victor McLaglen) shows up and tries to outbid the American. Slightly annoyed, she agrees to sell to Sean. Meanwhile, Sean has fallen for a beautiful redhead (Maureen O'Hara) who turns out to be Mary Kate Danaher, the sister of Will. She is excited by the prospect of marrying Sean but wants to follow the Irish proprieties--having a matchmaker start the arrangements, getting permission from the family, etc. Will is not at all enthusiastic about the match so plenty of conflict ensues. The local parish priest, the Protestant minister and his wife, and matchmaker Michaleen Flynn (Barry Fitzgerald in a great performance) rally to Sean's cause, especially when he seems less than willing to fight for the love of Mary Kate. Sean suffers from a bit of culture clash and from his own personal demons.

The movie is an amazing love story, steeped in Irish culture and actually filmed in Ireland (a novelty for Hollywood in 1952).  Sean and Mary Kate are very layered characters who have a lot of chemistry. Wayne and O'Hara are great together. The movie well balances the serious and the silly elements of the story. Dramatic moments are tempered with a quintessentially Irish sense of whimsy. The movie is utterly delightful.

Highly recommended.

Also, this movie was the subject of A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast #39.

Movie Review: Odd Man Out (1947)

Odd Man Out (1947) directed by Carol Reed

Johnny McQueen (James Mason) has been hiding out for six months since breaking out of a Northern Ireland prison. He's an Irish nationalist and has been planning a big heist to finance the nationalists' activities. His friends (including his new girlfriend) try to convince him not to go on the heist since he's been out of the action for so long. He goes anyway. Things go awry during the getaway and Johnny is left on the streets of Belfast with a bullet in his shoulder. As he tries to get back to the safe house, he runs into a variety of people who have a variety of reactions to him and his predicament. Some want to help him out, some want to sell him out, some want nothing to do with him. His girlfriend and some of the other nationalists are also looking for him. The cops have all the streets blocked and are ready to bring him in, if only they can find him.

The movie is not at all a political diatribe for either side of the issue. Johnny is a dying man who is more of a pawn than a player. The story moves a little slowly at points but the stark noir visuals and the constant introduction of new characters who could be allies or betrayers keep viewers paying attention. The details of their personalities are quite rich and evocative--one cop isn't interested in whether people are good or bad, only in their innocence or guilt; a Catholic priest wants to help but the only payment he'll offer is faith. The actors, even in small roles, do a good job (William Hartnell, the First Doctor, plays a saloon owner!).

I certainly wouldn't describe this as a fun movie, nor would I call it a tense thriller or a great heist/chase movie. It is an interesting look at a desperate man at the mercy of the people around him and how those people treat him. I found the ending unsatisfying but understand it narratively.

Holy Cross Dominican Priory, Tralee, Ireland

Holy Cross Dominican Priory is one of the Catholic churches in downtown Tralee, Ireland. We were in town on Sunday so we went to the 9:30 Mass. The building is on the main street into town (at least from our hostel) and is striking because it looks lopsided.

Holy Cross Dominican Priory, Tralee, Ireland

Detail of the door

The interior shows no sign of a larger left aisle than the right aisle, that might just be an illusion from outside.

Nave

The main altar has an altar rail where we received communion. That was a bit chaotic. People went forward for communion from different pews at different times. We couldn't perceive the order but we did eventually receive the Eucharist. Getting back was tricky since L didn't see the right pew and various people had already returned from communion, blocking the shortest paths back to our seats. It worked out okay.

Main altar

Stained glass glory

The church has many decorations dedicated to Dominican saints. The walls had several medallions painted on and several spots had statues.

St. Rose of Lima

St. Martin de Porres

St. Teresa (actually a Carmelite!)

St. Dominic with his dog!

Side altars are to Our Lady and to the Sacred Heart.

Lady Altar

Sacred Heart altar

I was a little surprised walking out of church to see the time--10:05! For a fairly full Sunday Mass that's very quick. The sermon was good but short and we sang no songs nor had the sign of peace. J and L were very well behaved, perhaps the quickness helped with that. Personally, I wonder if the fast Mass is due to habits from when Mass was legally forbidden in Ireland.

They didn't have tea and treats after Mass. We wandered around the downtown but found no coffee shops or bakeries open on Sunday morning. We had to go on our adventures with some chocolates bought from a newsstand. Oh well!

Who were the Dominicans in Tralee?
The Dominicans first came to Tralee in 1243 and they served the community for over 300 years. The suppression of the faith by Henry VIII's English government ended the first priory though individual Dominicans still served local Catholics in secret. At least one Dominican was executed for the crime of saying the Mass: Fr. Tadhg Moriarty was arrested, imprisoned, and executed in 1653. When the Faith was legal again, the Dominicans returned officially. That wasn't until 1861. The new church was completed by 1871, with only a few changes made after Vatican II.

A memorial statue has been erected in Tralee to the Dominicans who have served the locals faithfully for so many years.

Dominican Memorial in Tralee