Lohan behold
Hollywood star’s new movie was meant to be f ilmed in Wicklow until a Mayo county councillor put in a quiet word – and then... Westport’s Irish Wish came true!
A COUNTY councillor is claiming credit for the picturesque town of Westport – and Knock Airport – in Co. Mayo featuring in Irish Wish, the new blockbuster Netflix rom-com starring Lindsay Lohan.
And the Independent councillor says he even met the ‘very reserved’ Mean Girls star, Lohan, in his local, Matt Molloy’s pub in Westport.
Councillor Séamus Weir and his entire family were also subsequently invited to the premiere in New York but had to pass up the invite.
The schmaltzy Irish film, which will be available on the streaming platform from Friday, had been scheduled to shoot mainly in Co. Wicklow, in Autumn 2022.
But, thanks to some mishaps and a bond forged a few years earlier
‘What about Knock? Jaysus it looks nice’
between its producer, Michael Damian Weir and his long-lost cousin, Cllr Weir, several scenes were filmed in Co. Mayo.
Cllr Weir told the Irish Mail on Sunday that his distant cousin, a singer and actor famous in the US for playing Danny Romalotti in the long-running soap opera The Young And The Restless, first came to Mayo ‘looking for his roots’ in 2017.
‘His dad had died maybe a year before that, and his dad had always had this thing about wanting to come to Knockmore to find the roots,’ Cllr Weir explained. ‘And Michael had this thing in his head, “Listen, I’ll make this trip to Knockmore.”’
The councillor and his wife met Michael Damian and his wife Janeen, who directed Irish Wish, and the couples hit it off.
‘We kept in touch and about a year or two later I got a call from him and he had this thing about coming to Ireland to do a movie.’
Cllr Weir helped the filmmakers scope out locations on their next visit and Westport House, the site of the
former residence of famous pirate queen Grace O’Malley, was earmarked as a shooting location. Though the American couple ‘fell in love with Westport’, a location in Co. Wicklow was chosen for financial and logistical reasons.
But Cllr Weir continued to extol his country’s virtues to his relative.
‘I said, “You’re from Mayo! You’ve a one-in-a-million chance now to get something in.” I kept at him because we got very friendly, joking and messing. He’s a lovely fella and she’s lovely too. That was going on for a while but it wasn’t working.’
Then, baggage and staffing chaos at Dublin Airport turned out to be Mayo’s gain – the airport was unable to allow the filmmakers in to shoot a scene as planned, and Cllr Weir got a call from his American cousin.
Cllr Weir explained: ‘He said, “Séamus, we’re looking for an airport.” I said, “What about Knock Airport?” Janeen went on to Google and said, “Jaysus, it looks nice.”
‘When they got the airport confirmed, he said, “While we’re down, we better go down for the week.”’
Cue more location scouting, with two shops in Westport chosen.
‘I brought them into Matt Molloy’s [pub] as well,’ Cllr Weir said. ‘They loved it but they had a place booked
in Wicklow and they couldn’t let them down.’ Lohan was present in the famous pub, but showed no desire to revisit her partying days.
‘She was a very reserved type of a lady,’ Cllr Weir said. ‘Very reserved. We met her in Dublin as well. She was curious about who we were and all that. She was fine. Michael Damian took her under his wing and was very protective of her when she was here. The other guys and all the actors, they didn’t want much media attention, didn’t want to upset her.’
The ex Fine Gael councillor and his family may be in the film as extras, but he hasn’t seen it yet.
‘We’re not sure if we’re in it, but we were filmed,’ he said. ‘I’d be a bit embarrassed now. The family were even asked over to the film’s premiere in New York this week, but it ‘didn’t work out’.
Cllr Weir said he was only faintly aware of his celebrity cousin before he got in touch, through another US woman who came to trace her family lineage some years earlier.
And he lamented that he doesn’t share the same hairline genes as the impressively coiffed Michael Damian. ‘Not on my side of the family anyway,’ he laughed.