Fractured Fealty

Torn between an enraptured and emotionally-absent Catholic mother and a promiscuous Protestant minister father, Mhairead McAuley’s childhood world is deeply fractured. Bereft of parental guidance or a moral compass, she stumbles towards puberty, tortured by dreams that conflate religious imagery with budding sexual desire. Paralysed by guilt, she resorts to the insurance let-out of the Confessional. Alas, for her, the promised absolution is an illusion. With help, she begins to reconcile the two sides of her nature. But the child in her womb threatens to rip her world apart once more.