Slack Sabbaths?

About the programme

Twenty-five years after leaving Northern Ireland, BBC Radio 4’s writer and presenter Peter Curran returns to take a wry and amusing personal journey as he sets out to see how Sundays have changed.

In Slack Sabbaths? a film from Tern Television, Peter considers Sundays as they once were - locked up swings and packed churches are his own impressions when he left – and looks at what Sundays are like now.

Those old images of his fade when he realises just how we now spend the Lord’s Day. From being a good place to return to. During his travels Peter meets Reverend Richard Murray (image above) from Connor Presbyterian Church, outside Ballymena, and some young members of his congregation to find out why they feel it is still important to attend church.

In Glengormley with Father John Forsyth from St Bernard’s Church, Peter considers the reasons behind the falling numbers of local people attending Mass set against the fact many Polish people now living here attend church regularly. Peter talks to Polish-born lecturer Ewelina O’Donnell now living in Northern Ireland, one of those who faithfully attend Mass.

Since the change in the law on Sunday opening back in the mid Nineties with many people opting to go out shopping on a Sunday, Peter chats to traders in St George’s Market, people who are happy to work seven days a week.