It wasn't clear why the secrets had to stay secret. Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention. I did fade out a bit since the story moved along so slowly. But it seemed like the mother and daughter reunion would have been cool. Either way, there is sadness, but I think the truth would have been the better path. If I had been that mother or daughter, I would have wanted to know despite what had happened w my brother.
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Totally agree. There shouldn't have even been a question. Saw the first two. Enjoyed them but no more. Cant get past how Gerry ordered the murder of a baby and Jack does not even attempt to bring him to justice by revealing the truth. His mother should have been told as well. She is in need of a wake up call.
shareThis is the start of the series. Since it involves his own family I doubt this storyline will be dropped. There will probably be more developments as time goes on.
I don't know everything. Neither does anyone else
Well if he does anything to partially redeem himself, it well be without me to witness it!
#stilldisgusted.
This one episode did seem to have a secret that needed to come out.
However....this episode was just the beginning of the over-arching theme of the back country of Connemara--with its own ethos and own atmosphere of secrecy about many terrible events and actions.
It was a kind of metaphor for all the secrets carried, especially back in the day Mrs. Driscoll talks about--Ireland was one big cauldron of secrets, due to the oppressive control by the church, the old Gardaí and add to that the general back woods kind of rural mysticism at play.
All kinds of secrets were suppressed--illegitimate births where the mom raised the daughter's child as her own; the secrets of the horrific abuse at the hands of the Christian Brothers industrial schools (so tragically portrayed in a later ep); the general male-dominated society that meant men got away with murder (literally in the case of the Jack's monster of a father masquerading as 'the law' when his dad was nothing but a tin-pot dictator acting like some African potentate abusing his powers at every turn whilst pretending to be 'respected.'
And all the abuse by priests was going on too, without challenge and kept...a secret. (A recent study of a 50 year period recently reported that 3 out of 4 grownups, male and female, polled said they had been sexually touched or worse in school or church by a priest in the West of Ireland.) That's a lot of secrets that were kept.
And old Driscoll's loyal wife totally enabled that behavior, too, as she had drunk the Connemara secrets Kool-Aid practically from birth.
This episode seemed to introduce the whole theme of the secretive, buttoned up society--grandeur and beauty on the outside in the Connemara peninsula, but ugly and superating ugliness on the inside everywhere Jack probed.
Also, the rather obvious reason Jack couldn't tell all and stir up the hornet's nest about Tommy's "niece" was....Jack had slept with his....half sister!
He would want to let all that story drop wouldn't he? Imagine THAT scandal? He was inadvertently a part of the scandal himself by unknowingly sleeping with Soirse.
Jack's compromising position regarding his sister was certainly a consideration and embarrassing. However, they did it unknowingly, and was nothing compared to the pain and evilness he allowed to continue. It's been awhile since I have seen this. Was his sleeping with Soirse even widely known? It seems to me, that the "hero" should be the one to step up and shine a light. To battle against the old ways and secrets.
Good post though. Very thought provoking. Thank-you.