Song For a Raggy Boy

Song For a Raggy Boy is a 2003 film directed by Aisling Walsh. It is based on the book of the same name by Patrick Galvin and is based on true events. The film is set in 1939, on the brink of World War II, in the St. Judes Reformatory School, a ruthless Irish school for boys. Gray, gloomy and ruled by the sadistic Brother John , the school prefers punishment to rehabilitation. But new lay teacher William Franklin , fresh from the frontline of the Spanish Civil War, fights to liberate the boys from their oppressors. Two young boys have key roles in the film. Patrick Delaney 743 arrives at the... school aged 13 and a half. He, like all the boys, is allocated a number which the brothers use. Franklin, however, always uses the boys' names. Delaney is an attractive boy and he receives the unwelcome attentions of a pedophile brother, Brother Mac , who molests and rapes the boy in the school toilets. The boy tells of his ordeal to a visiting priest in confession only to be told not to say a word to anyone.
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