Delight in Achill as Banshees of Inisherin gets nine Oscar nominations

ON THEIR LIST Locals in Achill at an Oscars party in McLoughlin’s Bar celebrate as Banshees of Inisherin is nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars.

Delight in Achill as Banshees of Inisherin gets nine Oscar nominations


Edwin McGreal
Achill

Tuesday afternoon in Achill Sound and while it was dark and dreary outside, the warm fire in McLoughlin’s Bar and the bright lights of Hollywood were warming people physically and metaphorically.
An Oscars party was being hosted there and every single one of the nine nominations for the Banshees was greeted with rapturous applause.
The burgeoning success of the film has been closely followed in Achill after extensive parts of Marin McDonagh’s work were filmed on the island with many locals taking part as extras during filming in the summer of 2021.
The island hit the headlines earlier this month when The Banshees of Inisherin scooped three Golden Globes but the Oscars have brought Achill to another level.
“We’re over the moon for them,” said John Sweeney from Achill Sound, who was one of the extras in the film. “It is a fantastic film. For Achill it is stunning. It put us on the world map. This can be our Quiet Man. What The Quiet Man has done for Cong, The Banshees of Inisherin can do for Achill,” he added.
Chris McCarthy and his team at Achill Tourism have been busy this week dealing with media requests as TV, radio and newspapers want to get a sense of how Achill is celebrating the news.
The Banshees of Inisherin has been manna from heaven for promoting Achill. Achill Tourism have received huge engagement on social media with Catherine Kilbane driving a very successful campaign and around the island there was talk of little else on Tuesday last.
“There’s a close emotional attachment on Achill to this film because of all the filming done here. There is hardly a house in Achill that wasn’t touched by this film in some way during filming and since.
“We’re here on a dreary Tuesday in January and there’s a buzz and excitement around Achill as we watch the bright lights of Hollywood,” said McCarthy.
McCarthy spoke about how Achill plans to benefit long-term from the interest in the film, with a Banshees of Inisherin Locations Trail already launched online. Achill Tourism is working with Mayo County Council, Failte Ireland and the Wild Atlantic Way to provide physical infrastructure at the locations on the trail. But he stressed that any growth must be sustainable.
“We’re well placed here to welcome visitors. We’ve been welcoming tourists for 250 years. We’re also very keenly aware that any growth must be sustainable and respectful of Achill’s natural beauty and cultural heritage. That’s what drew Martin McDonagh here and we cannot forget that. We’re only passing through and we have to leave Achill in good shape for the next generation,” said McCarthy.

Waffles and sessions
Celebrity spotting became a popular pastime during filming with locals and movie stars like Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell mixing freely.
Farrell was often spotted out running on the roads of Achill while one picture of Farrell with an Achill woman in the local supermarket saw a local surge in demand for Birdseye potato waffles after a packet was seen in Farrell’s basket.
On receiving his Golden Globe Best Actor award, Farrell recalled the connections made.
“I want to thank the locals of Inis Mor and Achill Island that brought us in, and there were lines blurred between all of us so that we were just one big family for the betterment of all of our souls on that experience,” he said.
John Sweeney can testify to that.
“I had some lovely chats with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. They were very friendly and open. As Colin said at the Golden Globes, barriers were broken. We were all so relaxed around each other,” he said.
“We had a lovely music session with Brendan Gleeson and Pat Shortt in Mulranny. My son Graham played the guitar and Pat played too.
“Barry Keoghan was an absolute character. You couldn’t but laugh at him,” said Sweeney.

Local Oscars
And while the actual Hollywood Oscars haven’t been handed yet, one has certainly come the way of Achill already.
Jackie Memory from McLoughlin’s came out from behind the bar to host an impromptu presentation, giving it to Chris McCarthy ‘for all his work on promoting Achill’.
“A neighbour told me that the only Oscar I knew before this was on Sesame Street,” joked McCarthy.
Filming for the movie took place on six different eye-catching locations in Achill.
They included Jonjo’s pub at Cloughmore, the harbourside village and O’Riordan’s Post Office at Purteen Harbour; Corrymore Lake, which was the location for Mrs McCormack’s cottage as well as two hugely evocative scenes in the film; the cottage of Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson) at Keem Bay; and the church (St Thomas’s in Dugort) that was used for a Mass scene and Colm’s confessions.
“It was amazing to be involved with a film like this. Never in all my life did I think I’d be there on set seeing all the tricks of the trade of how a film is made,” said John Sweeney.
“Everything was so precise.
If you took a sip from your drink, it was topped up again for the next camera angle.
“I’m in the film in the pub and out on the boat. We were filming on the boat for three days and all for 20 seconds of footage.
That shows you the detail they go into,” he added.
Anne Hughes was an extra on the film as well but may not have been had it not been for Covid.
“I’m a retired teacher. We had been coming down to Achill from Dublin for holidays for 30 years but moved down altogether in 2020 during Covid and only for Covid, I probably wouldn’t have been involved in this.
It was so much fun being involved,” she explained.
As it turns out, herself and John Sweeney were husband and wife on set, although Sweeney quickly adds that he was a busy man.
“I had six wives during five weeks of filming and some of them were half my age so I pulled well,” he quipped.  
Maybe Henry VIII could be the next movie to be filmed in Achill.