The Fethard-on-Sea Boycott

In 1957, Sheila Cloney, Protestant wife of a Catholic farmer, fled from her home near the Wexford village of Fethard-on-Sea with her young daughters after refusing to bow to the demands of the local Catholic clergy to educate them as Catholics. In response, the priests launched a boycott of Fethard’s Protestant shopkeepers and farmers. The Fethard-on-Sea Boycott - subject of the feature film, A Love Divided - became a national scandal, prompting intervention by Taoiseach, Aeamon de Valera. Tim Fanning tells the story of one of the ugliest sectarian episodes to occur in the Republic. He examines how deep-rooted historical grievances over land ownership on Wexford’s Hook Peninsula and the Catholic Church’s Ne Temere decree on mixed marriages resulted in one small rural community tearing itself apart and how, during the 1980s, the arrival of paedophile priest Sean Fortune reopened old wounds in the village. Fethard is still coming to terms with its bitter history today.