The Ferry

The Ferry is a darkly comic mystery thriller with an unexpected twist. Told from the perspective of three women, of three generations, as they search for a mother, a child, and atonement for sins of the past.
The Film examines the issue of the forced adoption culture in Ireland which has come under much scrutiny in recent months.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/mother-and-baby-homes-report-will-increase-calls-for-state-redress-cabinet-told-1.4394644

Set in Ireland it mirrors the stories of women all over the world. Similar accounts of the institutionalisation of women and forced adoption of their children come from far and wide including the US, Canada, UK, Poland, and Australia.

Director’s statement: Niall Mc Kay
*It was the 9 th of September 1974. I was 7-years of age. I awoke in the middle of the night. All the doors and windows were open. There was a trail of blood from my mum’s bedroom to the bathroom, the door was locked and the water was running. I called out to my mother but there was no answer. It was her second suicide attempt in as many days. Luckily, she survived.
It was established early on that my mother was incapable of looking after me. “So what was to become of the boy Niall?”, a letter between my parent’s lawyers asked.
At that time in Ireland fathers were seen as unsuitable guardians for young children. My father consulted a family friend Father Desmond Williams who worked at the Bishops office who recommended that I be placed at an orphanage in Dublin called the O’Brien Institute.
“I shall ask the (Brother) Superior to give the application his immediate attention and I take that the decision can be obtained from the trustees for the beginning of the school year,” he wrote in a letter to my father.
Two weeks later I was accepted. Happy days. Father Desmond became Bishop Desmond Williams and in 1987 failed to report priests accused of sexual abuse to the police. Corruption within the church (and Irish State) was widespread and systematic but I was one of the lucky ones.

The Ferry was born out of both personal experience and the recurring question that is still left unanswered ‘where were the men?’ When contemplating how to tell a story of loss, abandonment and the unholy conspiracy between church and state, I kept getting drawn back to that question.

Magdalene laundries (sometimes called Magdalen Asylum for Penitent Females), the illegal adoption industry and the punishment of the most vulnerable within our society for a perceived moral infraction, be that the victim of rape, incest or simply being born of an unwed mother, was the secret known by all. It was the threat used to keep children in line and fear in young women.

Bertha, Clodagh, and Aoife. Three women, three generations, connected by loss and guilt. Unknown to each other until they collide in the search for answers about their respective pasts. They are the human faces of a vitriolic past which still haunts so many in Ireland and around the world.

*An extract from - Is the Catholic Church Finished in Ireland? Abuse of Women and Children by the Catholic Church and The State is driving even the faithful away. - By Niall McKay