The Source Arts Centre Programme of Events Spring 2020 The Source Arts Centre Programme SPRING 2020 | Page 8

SPRING 2020
FORSAKEN
SCREENING THIS SEASON
IS FARCRY PRODUCTIONS
‘LAND WITHOUT GOD’, A
DOCUMENTARY DEALING
WITH MANNIX FLYNN AND
HIS FAMILY’S EXPERIENCES
OF THE STATES INDUSTRIAL
SCHOOL SYSTEM.
Mannix Flynn is on The Late Late Show. Its
1980 and he’s telling presenter Gay Byrne
about his experiences in Letterfrack
Industrial School and the other state
institutions he’s been in. It may be his
working class Dublin accent (little heard
on television at the time) or his sense of a
person who has moved on after being
involved in and witnessing events that are
so outlandish, terrifying and in some
cases ridiculous, that they invite a tone of
humour. Either way, there is an air of
jocularity about the proceedings, laughter
in some cases from the audience as he
recounts his story.
Fast forward four decades later and it’s
clear to see from a new film that details
his and his sibling’s lives, that it is not so
easy to move on. ‘Land Without God’ looks
at one’s family’s experience of becoming
entangled in the state apparatus for
dealing with what the Industrial Schools
Act of 1868 called the care for ‘neglected,
orphaned and abandoned children.’
Flynn’s family were large – there were
fifteen of them and Mannix the seventh
child. They lived in York Street, near
Stephen’s Green – a working class
area.  The film outlines how at the age of
ten he was incarcerated for the most
trivial of offences and sent from the city
to St Joseph’s Industrial College in
Letterfrack. He underwent horrific sexual
and physical abuse there.
8
The Source Arts Centre