In season 3, episode "Lost Sheep", a girl called Nainsi come looking for the whereabouts of her alledged older sister, who has disappeared. This older sister appears to be her mother after checking the files of doctor Michael.
It is my impression that Father Mac is the biological father of Nainsi.
Any other ideas?
That's what's implied. The looks Father Mac gives the girl, the way he helps her out in a biological fatherly way, and the way he adores the pictures of her mother (in which he is closely standing next to her).
I, personally, don't buy the storyline as all that realistic, but that's what's given to us and that's what I got from it.
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I wondered...
But I'm a little more confused on the subject on Kathleen - she's very shocked to see her in BallyK but we don't really hear a direct answer from her about why....It's been a while since I've seen that episode and I can be a bit slow with this sort of thing, so did I miss something?
It's been years since I've viewed that particular episode, but at the time I watched it through again and again trying to work it out also. My take on it was this:
Kathleen knew all along about Father Mac's attraction/liaison with Nancy's mother, and had kept the secret, while at the same time holding a torch for Father Mac - which she expressed as strong and unwavering religious devotion.
As I remember it, the `truth' about whether Father Mac was actually the girl's father was only ever vaguely implied, as that was a can of worms the writers did not wish to deal with.
"Go on, go in a huddle and plot; isn't that what spooks do?"
I just watched Series 3 over the last few days, so it's pretty fresh in my mind. There's a part in "Lost Sheep" where Kathleen is in the confessional talking to Father Clifford, and she said that sometimes the people you love don't know what's best for them, and that she stood between two people in love, and that sometimes she regrets what she did. So my feeling is that maybe Nainsi's mother, Eileen, confided in Kathleen that she was having an affair with Father MacAnally and that she was pregnant. Kathleen, having feelings for Father MacAnally herself (as someone else has stated) and not wanting shame brought upon him from the scandal, convinced Eileen to leave town without telling Father MacAnally that she was pregnant with his child, effectively ending their relationship.
Seeing Nainsi, who looked so much like her mother, was like seeing a ghost to Kathleen. She had thought the matter was in the past and didn't expect it to come up again. So when Nainsi arrived to dig up the story about Eileen's time in Ballykissangel, Kathleen was worried that her part in the situation might come back to haunt her. That's why she looked so shocked.
That's just my guess, though. As with the idea of Father MacAnally being the father, it's only vaguely implied.
That is just what I was going to write. I just watched it last night and that sounds right to me.
I agree with you all that it did seem implied. However, I wondered if it was the other priest, who the mom was the housekeeper for, that was briefly mentioned.
Also, at the end, Father Clifford asks Nancy if she's mad at her grandmother. that was after Kathleen's confession. So, I started wondering if Kathleen was the mother of Nancy's mom. If I'm way off, please forgive me. It just started airing where I am, and I'm just now to the "shock". I'm utterly heartbroken about it, but that's another thread, so I won't elaborate.
"nuttier than a 20 pound Christmas fruit cake"
--BASIC INSTINCT
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Yes. She talks about her mother having just died, only to discover that her mother was her *grand*mother; and that the long-lost sister she never knew was, in fact, her mother.
Kathleen acts like she's seen a ghost because Nainsi looks like her mother did at that age.
I saw no implication that Kathleen had any feelings of her own for Father Mac. On the contrary, I think she felt the right place for him to be was the priesthood. She knew the secret of their affair and when she saw that Father Mac was leaning toward giving up the priesthood, she made sure that he made sure his proper place and vocation was the Church, not family life. There is also the implication that she put pressure on Nainsi's mother to leave so that Father Mac could devote his life to the priesthood instead of to her.
There is a very poignant scene where Kathleen and Father Mac are in the church. She has asked to talk to him. The impression is that she is going to tell him, since he apparently does not realise it, that Nainsi is his daughter. But she can't bring herself to do it. Later in the episode, she talkes to Father Clifford instead and tells him how she stood in the way of true love for the greater good, the implication being that she knew Father Mac would eventually come to regret having left the priesthood.
Of course, that Father Mac does belong in the priesthood is obvious from the word go - one could not imagine that character as anything but a priest. So, in that sense, Kathleen was right about his vocation being in the Church. But as sure as she is about that, there is the lingering question of whether intervening in their relationship was the right thing to do. She's pondering the broader question that, even if and when you *do* know that something is absolutely the right choice for people to make, does that it right for you to intervene in the making of that choice in such a way that you effectively make the choice for them.
A very thought-provoking, poignant episode. It ends, by the way, with Nainsi getting on the bus back to Dublin. As the bus takes off, Father Mac starts to ran after it a little, with a look in his eye as though he's just realised something. But he can't run fast enough to catch it. And perhaps doesn't know what to say if he did.
Great line, too, when Nainsi gets on the bus to go away: "Good bye father."
Father Mac looked a bit odd when she said that, because he realized that was more accurate than she realized.
When we were shown in that episode that Father Mac had once had feet of clay where women and love was concerned, it put more into perspective Father Mac's dismay over Peter's infatuation with Assumpta. He'd been there himself, so he saw the signs, I guess.
It also seems that even when Father Mac was dismayed by Peter's feelings for Assumpta, Father Mac never descended into total rant or criticism---which was surprising. But then we knew he'd been in the same position once himself. That seemed to keep the writers fro making him the harsh, normally hardliner Father Mac we saw in other issues.
Interestingly, we also never really know if Father Mac would have left the priesthood himself for the woman he loved--who was carrying his child. Because nosey parker Kathleen stuck her oar in and intervened to get the woman to leave town without telling Father Mac.
I found that inutterably sad.
He simply sent Peter away to find his vocation again. So Mac did not play the total hypocrite role. He soft peddled that one a bit.
I definitely got that impression, but felt it may have happened before Fr. Mac took his final vows, or possibly I just felt more comfortable with that. However, looking at the photo he appeared t0 be in his 40's which makes an affair with a young woman a bit off. Niall Tobin was 66 when this episode was made, and Nainsi was supposed to be 21, but Antoine Byrne looked much older. Knowing that Eileen had been Father Geraty's housekeeper I wondered also if he had been the father but watching the episode again I could see clues by the ton.
When Peter was about to renounce his vocation at the end of series 3, Father Mac told him that Ireland was full of Assumpta Fitzgeralds, which gave me the impression that he had once been in love and seriously contemplated choosing marriage over the priesthood.
Whether or not Kathleen had carried a torch for him, I'm not sure if she was a spinster or widow, but she was the kind of faithful churchgoer who sees themselves as protector of the priest and the church. Between the meddling Kathleen and Dr. Ryan who doesn't seem aware of doctor/patient confidentiality, no one can have any secrets in BallyK. I have all the series on DVD and watch it whenever I need a mood lift. It's 'feel good' TV.
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