Scenes from In the Name of the Father were filmed in Ringsend
Brendan Gleeson and Adrian Dunbar on the streets of Ringsend in The General
A plaque celebrating a part of Ringsend which has featured in numerous movies and music videos, including In The Name of the Father, will be unveiled this Friday.
The plaque will be unveiled at Mellon’s Shop on the South Lotts Road at 3pm on April 26, to “celebrate” the many pop videos, movies and documentaries filmed in the area.
These include Jim Sheridan’s In the Name of the Father, starring Daniel Day Lewis, where the street doubled as Belfast, and The General, starring Brendan Gleeson.
Other films that have been shot in the area include Educating Rita and Into the West, while music videos include those from The Cranberries, The Shoos, Boyzone, and many more.
“We’re getting an influx of new people in the area, and we want to bring the story of Ringsend to them,” said Eddie Bohan, Chairperson of the Ringsend and District Historical Society.
Brendan Gleeson and Adrian Dunbar on the streets of Ringsend in The General
Paul Brannock, another member of the society, says that growing up in the area was the “best”.
A number of different films related to the Troubles were filmed there due to the brickwork on some of the houses that resembled those of Belfast.
“We had great fun, we were tasked with painting graffiti on a wall, and we were given £10 each,” he said. “It’s fair to say the local sweet shop did well.”
He described the area as a “hub of activity” and said his only memory was coming home from work one day and seeing two army tanks outside his home during the filming of In the Name of the Father.
Other celebrities have frequented the area to shoot music videos, which Mr Brannock puts down to the iconic old gasometer structure in Ringsend which forms a good backdrop.
He added that in order to remember all that’s happened in Ringsend, you’d need “five separate plaques”.
