Exquisitely shot (Ireland has never looked greener) and solidly acted, especially by the late Tony Doyle, this is still an unrelenting true story of 50 years ago with little respite from grimness. Orla Brady is the Protestant woman who weds a Catholic (Liam Cunningham), obtaining an 'us against the world' promise from him at the outset of their marriage. When it comes to educating their children, however, he buckles under pressure from the local Catholic priest, whom Doyle turns into one of the great villains of the screen. Although this subsequently becomes a worldwide headline case, the film never really explains why Sheila, previously quite happy to bring her children up in the Catholic church, should be so incensed by these problems to run off with her girls at a moment's notice and build a new life in the Orkneys. The resultant vendetta against Protestants in the village, though, is sickening stuff, if sometimes clumsily handled.

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