BY JOHN FITZGERALD
(Part One)
Twenty years ago this month a Kilkenny town was transformed into a gigantic film set. For a few magical weeks stars of stage and screen held Callan in thrall when a part of Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto was shot on location there.
A feeling of loss and sadness engulfed the town the day in September 2004 that Jordan and his team prepared to leave. Their departure followed a spectacular scene in which the Parish Church- the Big Chapel- was burned to the ground!
Locals had welcomed the film crew with open arms, apart from a certain unease among mass-goes about the use of the church for shooting.
The majority of people enjoyed the carnival atmosphere and the unfamiliar buzz that the film brought to Callan. The film’s storyline had set the tongues wagging for weeks before filming began. Understandably: It revolved around an illegitimate son of a parish priest who became a transvestite and got up to all sorts of weird and comical antics.
It also had a great cast that included Liam Neeson, Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleeson, Ruth McCabe, and singer Mary Coughlin.
Whatever about the storyline, Callan fell in love with the film crew and backup teams on the first day of shooting, with householders opening their doors and offering cups of tea to them at every opportunity.
From Day One there was a palpable sense of unreality in the town as the special effects team sprayed parts of upper Green Street with frost.
The winter scene, complete with white icy streets, trees bereft of leaves, and snow-capped vintage cars, clashed with the warm Autumn sunshine and the other trees lining the street that still had all their leaves gently fluttering.
The conversion of two trees opposite the Parish Church into skeletal wintry hulks had been accomplished with painstaking skill. Over a period of several hours, dedicated leave-pickers had stripped the trees bare. Passers-by had applauded their superhuman patience and commitment.
The unfamiliar names added to shop fronts, and the private houses turned into shops …had almost lost their novelty appeal as shooting commenced…Though Mary Munnelley of Bridge Street basked in the attention she received from the day her quaint house-front bore the name: “EJ Botwood, Dressmaker”.
“I loved every minute of the shooting in Callan”, she enthused, “Having that sign over my door really makes me feel I was part of the big adventure, and of this whole movie craze that’s gripped the town.”
She reminded me that her house was at one time a shop, so the film crew’s interest in it was understandable as it retained its old world façade.
Signposts in the town pointing to Derry and Belfast elicited a mixed reaction from drivers passing through, though no one seems to have lost their way as a result. And with so many mobile phones around, nobody missed the phone booths that were covered up and changed into…stone monuments.
The absence of black and amber flags or bunting along Bridge Street in the week leading up to the All-Ireland took a little getting used to…until the outcome of the match encouraged locals to re-focus happily on the antics of Pussy Braden, a charming and absorbing character if not exactly a Kilkenny Cat.
As the shades of evening approached on Day One, filming transferred to Tullamaine graveyard, about two miles on the Kilkenny side of Callan. The normally quiet road outside the cemetery teemed with onlookers, straining to catch a glimpse of Liam Neeson…or of anything happening inside.
Mock-up graves were added to the real ones on the burial site. A well-trampled cornfield separated the road from the graveyard, and nobody outside could see any of the action.
Gardai managed and manipulated the flow of traffic past the graveyard to perfection. When the words: “Rolling…Quiet, please!” echoed around the Hill of Tullamaine, everything on wheels came to a grinding halt, followed by a deafening silence interrupted only by the faint sound of actors speaking their lines behind the wall fronting the cemetery.
After each take, the boys in blue released the lengthening conveys of cars and lorries in both directions, as if by magic. It reminded me of the song line: “He stopped all the traffic with a wave of his hand…”
(To be continued…)
