Peter Lennon, then a junior feature writer for "The Guardian" in Paris, was told by friends in his week back in Dublin covering the theatre festival, that Ireland was changing: "'censorship was a thing of the past' they told me." No one paid any attention to the clergy, it was claimed. Gaining permission from his newspaper to write a series of articles about the situation in Ireland, he found this was not so. The articles gained much notice lasting over a year, and he was able to make the film when his friend, Victor Herbert, who had made a fortune selling mutual funds, agreed to finance it.