Review of Ballykissangel

There are so many details to the allegory of series one of Ballykissangel that I cannot fit them all into a review. I will give you a representative sampling. There are 13 main characters, who represent aspects of the main "characters" in the Gospel portrayals of Christ and indeed of those who choose to follow Him: Peter ("on this rock shall I build My church") the contemporary church and intermediary/scapegoat/priest/counselor and lover of souls; Assumpta (a sort of Mary character/virgin/lost sheep); Quigley (the business side of the church perhaps); Fr Mac (the tradition/intermediary/priest/father in more ways than one); Dr Ryan (healer); Ambrose (judge/the law/named for St Ambrose); Niamh (wife/has miscarriage - of child, of justice); Liam and Donal (the two thieves as those crucified with Christ/carpenters like Joseph); Brendan (skeptic to some extent/father without benefit of Holy Matrimony); Siobhan (mother without benefit of Holy Matrimony); Kathleen (Sunday stalwart, represents the traditional worshippers and followers of Christ); and Padraig (to me he represents the fishermen who were ordinary people taken up with a special calling nonetheless). It starts with a priest (Fr Mac) near a church roof ("nearer to God") and ends with a publican (read "tax collector" in the New Testament), who is also a virgin who has been "stoned" in St Joseph's Church no less, dying of an (electrical) shock in a pub basement (can't get much farther away from Heaven than that, yet she is saved when Peter says the Last Rites of the Roman Catholic Church over her). Words come up again and again in every or nearly every episode and here is a sampling of the double-meanings: shock (electrical/spiritual "round teabags would come as a shock to some of the people around here" says Siobhan), Father (Godfather - what is a priest but a God father/natural father/Father of all things=God); play (Passion play/staged play/"I'm playing barman", says Leo); "housekeeper" (which is what the Greek word Diocese means, right?); call (altar/ordination/phone/needed/Last Call, as in a public house). What is a public house but a secular church? The church writ large and the lost sheep or nonbelievers outside the Church need each other (that is another word that figures frequently in the series), though they keep denying it. People sleep during the day (see the episode after baby Kieran is born) and are awake at night (see the episode where Ambrose and Peter stay up in church all night "looking for the hoaxer" only to entrap Fr Mac, who is a "good man" but is a kind of hoaxer too because he as a Roman Catholic priest preaches celibacy without practicing it. His daughter comes to BallyK in the "Lost Sheep" episode where she is introduced and only Kathleen and Fr Mac recognize her for what she is ("Father Geraghty's housekeeper" is mentioned in another reference to diocesan and bishop roles). I think, and I have not seen Kieran Prendiville address this, that Ballykissangel is a love letter to the church, imploring it not only to reach out to the lost sheep in trying to follow Jesus' command, but also to nurture those within it ("...and drive the faithful out!", Kathleen exclaims as she leaves a Folk Mass - what is a folk mass but an outreach like fishers of men were called to do). Also a warning that the time is short to make that "connection" before it is "Gone with the Wind" or a "Brief Encounter". Other references are: "Dark Rosaleen" which is a poem about Ireland by James Clarence Morgan(allegorical), Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon" - a look at the titles on that album will give you more comparisons and aspects of BallyK ("Speak to Me"..."On the Run"..."Money", etc). "She doesn't want it; she told me!", Peter cries in one of the final scenes of "The Reckoning" (what reckoning? - a totaling up, a story being told, balances of two sides?) "What if she needs it anyway?", Niamh replies. This is the whole point. "I am an innocent bystander caught (there is another word used several different ways) up in a bitter feud", Peter says. Indeed this is the situation between church and those outside it who say they are spiritual but not religious. "...bringing people together, helping them make sense of their lives...", Assumpta says of Peter, and this can be said of church. I encourage people who watch this series, the first season with the Peter and Assumpta main characters, to think allegorically, to find in it meaning, deeper meaning, to search for the double and treble meanings in frequently-used words in this series. I think you will get more out of it, and will come away from viewing it, whether for the first time or the three hundredth time, with a focus for thought, contemplation, outreach, sympathy, and spirit. I thank Mr. Prendiville for having written it and for the actors for having so carefully followed what he and his writing partners wrote. A meaningful piece of work, hidden behind a "forbidden love" story that conceals what it is really about. The only flaw, other than the fact that I have never read a review of this show which "gets it", some of the humor is a bit slapstick, but that is only this reviewer's taste and might not be yours. Watch Ballykissangel again, and see it in a new Heaven and a new Earth!