‘Cosc Ar Ghneas/A Ban On Sex’, a new sex documentary from Louis Marcus productions, will be screened on TG4 this weekend, February 26, at 9.05 p.m.
The programme begins in 1940’s Ireland, Ireland banned as indecent and obscene two hilarious
classics that sprang from Gaelic culture - Frank O’Connor’s The Midnight Court,
a translation of Brian Merriman’s sexual satire Cúirt an Mheán Oíche, and
The Tailor and Ansty Eric Cross’s portrait of an earthy West Cork couple.
The filmmakers investigate what was so shocking about these two books at the time? How did the frank and amused attitude to sex of the Gaelic tradition become the puritanism of the new Irish
state? And now, 200 years after the death of Merriman, is today’s sexual
climate of clubbing, lap-dancing and pornography a liberation or a plunge into
decadence?
A number of expert opinions are expressed throughout the programme with Angela Bourke (UCD), Prof
Declan Kiberd (UCD), Dr Máire Ní Annracháin (Maynooth), Dr Máirín Nic
Eoin (St Patrick’s), Prof Gearóid Ó Crualaoich (UCC), Liam P Ó Murchú
(UCC) and Dr Alan Titley (St Patrick’s) among the interviewees.
Though these two books are prized for their comic qualities, they raise serious
issues that are still very real in Ireland: bribery and corruption, women’s
rights, marriage breakdown, clerical celibacy (or its absence), children outside
wedlock, media sensationalism, and the thin line between frankness and
pornography.
Extracts from Merriman’s Rabelaisian Cúirt an Mheán Oíche are brought to life
with vivid illustrations by artist Brian Coldrick, and with English subtitles drawn
from Frank O’Connor’s banned translation. The bawdy fun of The Tailor and
Ansty is captured in clips from an archival RTÉ production featuring the late
Eamon Kelly and Maura O’Sullivan.
‘Cosc Ar Ghneas/A Ban On Sex’, is a Louis Marcus Production
for TG4 and Bord Scannán na hÉireann/Irish Film Board.
TG4 Saturday February 26, at 9.05 p.m.
