Peter Lennon’s 1968 documentary about the state of Ireland in that transformative decade

Organizations with militaristic or bluntly religious monikers like the Boys Brigade, the Catholic Headmasters Association, the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, the Catholic Writers Guild, Comhairle an Fhainne, the Irish National Teachers Organization, the Irish Retail Newsagents Association, the Irish Vigilance Association, the Schoolmasters Association and the Young Men's Christian Association all made recommendations about banning material that had scandalized them. If an Irish writer made their list his or her books disappeared overnight.

There was a terrible irony about all of this. In throwing off one form of oppression (British colonial rule) we reflexively shouldered another (Roman Catholic rule).  Lennon’s sardonic film quietly but emphatically makes this point.

In the Irish society of 1967 priests are everywhere -- at weddings, baptisms, funerals, high toned sporting events, working class concerts, horse shows, dances, hospitals, orphanages, anywhere and everywhere the Irish public congregated in public or private. But they were also in government too, exerting a proxy political power that was completely unassailable.

“The close involvement of Irish politicians with the clergy is not so much a villainous conspiracy as a bad habit,” Lennon narrates, and you can hear the exasperation in his voice.

A scene where Lennon films Father Michael Cleary singing The Chattanooga Shoeshine Boy to a women’s maternity ward is a remarkable moment, as is Cleary’s passionate defense of priestly celibacy and the church’s attitude to sex.

There’s poignancy in the fact that Cleary would later go on to secretly father two children with his 17-year-old housekeeper, Phyllis Hamilton. The couple was even secretly together when Lennon made this film.

The film concludes with a wedding party, with Cleary staring at the rows of dancing couples. He’s prevented by his position from joining them.

With hindsight it’s a hilarious image and it’s also unspeakably sad. It’s an emblem of the conflicted attitude the Ireland of 1967 had about its past and it’s future.

It’s moments like these in Rocky Road to Dublin that say it all about who we were and where we’re going.

The DVD of Rocky Road to Dublin is available from Icarus Films for $24.98.

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Nster.com