The Mayo News

Hollywood comedy actor Will Ferrell was in Westport last week, and Neill O’Neill met him.
STAR-SPOTTING Mayo News reporter, Neill O’Neill, pictured with Hollywood star, Will Ferrell, in Westport last week.

‘Anchorman’ Ferrell visits Westport

Neill O’Neill

WORD must be spreading in celebrity circles that west Mayo is the place to go if you want to get away from it all.
After U2 frontman, Bono, spent a week in Newport at the turn of the year, Hollywood’s hottest comedy actor of recent times, Will Ferrell, was in Westport last week.
The star of such hit movies as ‘Anchorman’, ‘Old School’ and ‘Talladega Nights’ was almost unrecognisable last Tuesday morning as he strolled around Westport wrapped in a large hooded jacket to beat the winter chill.
After breakfast in O’Cee’s Coffee Shop with his father, Lee, and brother Patrick, the Californian-born actor who commands $20 million per film, went browsing in the shops on Bridge Street like any other tourist.
When approached, he happily posed for photographs and informed this curious reporter that he was travelling around Ireland for two weeks. Before answering any of the questions put to him, he asked if I was local and if I had lived in Westport all my life before revealing that he liked the town and wished he could stay a while longer.
The whole incident became a bit surreal when he asked for directions to Sligo and it was hard not to laugh as I stood on Bridge Street in Westport trying to explain to ‘Frank the Tank’ to take a left turn as he entered Charlestown.
Meanwhile, more stories have been surfacing from Bono’s recent break in Tiernaur, with one local man, who did not wish to be named, recounting how the rock star got bogged down in the snowfall of January 4 as he emerged from a side road near Mulranny. The farmer was passing in his Jeep and went to the aid of the stranded motorist – whom he did not initially recognise – towing his Bentley up onto the road.

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