Yes, they have a donkey too.
There are many iconic sets from last year’s award-winning flick The Banshees of Inisherin, from the beautiful beachy landscape of the island to Pádraic Súilleabháin’s crooked little cottage.
However, the heart of the film is JJ Devine’s – the dark, low-ceiling pub where the locals go to drink their sorrows away. Luckily for us, we’re now fully able to pop in for a drink ourselves, thanks to Galway pub owner Luke Mee and his family.
In a stroke of genius, the Galway man decided to reconstruct the premises in the village of Kilkerrin from scratch, complete with donkey and all.
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“I saw the movie and I was intrigued by the bar,” Mee told The Guardian. “My sister lives on Achill. So I called her up and asked her if she knew what happened to the pub once filming had finished, because her husband would be in the know as he worked in security on the set.
“And guess what? She said Tom, her husband, might have that.”
Mee and his friend Michael Kelly then travelled to Achill to pick up the remnants of the iconic set from Martin McDonagh’s film from a back garden scrap heap, brought it back to Galway and began the project from there.
What they constructed is a carbon copy of the original pub and it’s now officially open to visitors as of this month. Of course, Mee is hoping for some very particular guests to grace the door once again and we’re sure Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson will pop by at some point.
“It would be amazing for them to pop in, that would be massive,” Mee told the Irish Independent
The famous Banshees of Inisherin pub has been rebuilt in County Galway thanks to Luke Mee of Mee’s Bar in Kilkerrin!
Luke transported the pub over 180kms. JJ Devine’s Public House will open this weekend to the public ?
? Mike Shaughnessy pic.twitter.com/ZJ3oqsjPDF
— VFI (@VFIpubs) June 29, 2023
There’s also an open invite to Taylor Swift, who has previously called for the temporary pub to be installed on a permanent basis.
“The ball is in her court now, we have reserved the first free pint for Taylor Swift, so if Brendan Gleeson comes here or Colin Farrell, they’ll have to have two half pints instead.”
Something tells us she might be able to find some time around late June 2024 for a flying visit.
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