{"id":536096,"date":"2026-07-06T17:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T17:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/536096\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T17:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T17:39:08","slug":"heart-of-a-servant-the-father-flanagan-story-on-rte-one-a-national-celebrity-in-the-us-shunned-in-ireland-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/536096\/","title":{"rendered":"Heart of a Servant: The Father Flanagan Story on RT\u00c9 One \u2013 A national celebrity in the US shunned in Ireland \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why isn\u2019t Edward Joseph Flanagan better known in Ireland? Born near Ballymoe, Co Galway<\/a>, he trained as a priest in Rome, became a pioneering advocate for the downtrodden in the US and was depicted on screen by Spencer Tracy in the Oscar-winning 1938 film Boys Town. Just this year, he was set on the path to sainthood when Pope Leo<\/a> bestowed upon him the status of \u201cvenerable\u201d \u2013 a staging post to being named a saint. <\/p>\n

The answer as set forth in the documentary Heart of a Servant: The Father Flanagan Story (RT\u00c9 One, Monday, 9.35pm) is that, as with many Irish people who are shunned in their own country, he had a bit too much to say for himself. Having achieved renown as a campaigner for the poor in the US, he returned to Ireland in 1946 and was aghast at the conditions of the industrial and reform Schools which had become dumping grounds for children from poor families.<\/p>\n

He called out the hypocrisy of pure, Catholic Ireland in a speech in Cork, where he said the State\u2019s institutions \u201care not all noble\u201d and branded Ireland\u2019s gulag-like borstals a \u201cdisgrace\u201d. And that was that: he was quietly written out of history. \u201cA prophet,\u201d says Bishop Kevin Doran, \u201cis never recognised among his own people.\u201d <\/p>\n

Flanagan\u2019s story is fascinating and is relayed with the gusto of a practiced hype-man in Heart of a Servant: The Father Flanagan Story.<\/p>\n

The film is produced by Rob Kaczmark, a founder of Spirit Juice Studios \u2013 one of the US\u2019s \u201clargest and most trusted Catholic studios\u201d. Aimed at a religious audience it has an aura of piousness and reverence that sometimes takes you out of the story. You can almost smell the incense and hear the rustle of clerical vestments. <\/p>\n

It also feels pitched largely at an American viewership and assumes we are familiar with Flanagan\u2019s achievements \u2013 which were hugely impressive, particularly in light of where the US finds itself today. Chief among these was establishing Boys Town, a village in Nebraska dedicated to the care of abandoned and underprivileged children. <\/p>\n

Boys Town welcomed all \u2013 regardless of race or religion. This did not endear Flanagan to locals at a time when the Ku Klux Klan was resurgent in Nebraska. It took enormous personal courage to face down the US\u2019s violent bigotry. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor white people to stand against the way things were, they themselves would be subject to the same violence and threats,\u201d says one contributor. \u201cFr Flanagan gave up his whiteness to stand in solidarity with these boys.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went to the US at the age of 18 and seems to have acquired the confidence and work ethic of his new home. And the accent \u2013 when we hear him speak \u2013 is in the booming cadences of an All-American icon. But the poor health he suffered early in childhood stayed with him and became an impediment later in life, when he would travel the US tirelessly seeking to raise funds for Boys Town. <\/p>\n

At that stage, he had already made his mark. By 1938 and the film Boys Town, he was a national celebrity in the US, as Spencer Tracy acknowledged when receiving an Oscar for playing Flanagan on screen. \u201cI don\u2019t think I can accept this,\u201d Tracy said in his Oscar speech. \u201cI accept it as a tribute to the man who inspired the picture, Fr Flanagan.\u201d <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a shame the documentary doesn\u2019t give us a better sense of the private Fr Flanagan. We are told he was hard-working and driven by the fierce belief that everyone is equal and has a right to a rich and meaningful life. But we don\u2019t feel it: he never comes to life as a person. <\/p>\n

Oddly, for an American production, some of the strongest segments are back in Ireland. In his home village of Ballymoe, locals talk passionately about Flanagan and his legacy. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe is definitely a saint for our time,\u201d says Fidelma Croghan in a heartfelt coda. \u201cWe need hi<\/p>\n

m, the church needs him.\u201d The point is well made \u2013 but Heart of a Servant too often feels like a lecture delivered from a pulpit rather than a fully-realised portrait of another Irish person heralded abroad and, until recently, forgotten at home. <\/p>\n

Heart of a Servant: The Father Flanagan Story, RT\u00c9 One, Monday Jully 6th, 9.35pm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why isn\u2019t Edward Joseph Flanagan better known in Ireland? Born near Ballymoe, Co Galway, he trained as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12780,61,60,43,6085],"class_list":["post-536096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-catholic-church","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-rte"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}