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Either you clicked on this link because you’re a fan of the movie Brooklyn (like Charity and myself are), or you’ve never seen it and you’re just interested or curious.

Movie Brooklyn

If it’s the later, below is a brief synopsis of the film which we highly suggest if you enjoy romantic/chick-flick type movies.

You can purchase the movie in a number of formats (or the book) from Amazon.com by clicking on the following links:
Brooklyn – Amazon Instant Movie | Brooklyn DVD | Brooklyn Blu-ray | Brooklyn Book

Disclosure: Off with the Kids is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program.  We receive a small commission for any purchase made by clicking on the links on our website.  We are truly appreciative if you choose to purchase anything through our site, and sincerely thank you for helping to support our blog!

The movie Brooklyn is based off the novel of the same name by Colm Toibin.  It was released in 2015 and received many nominations including the Academy Award for Best Picture.  Scene from Movie BrooklynThe film stars Saoirse Ronan (pronounced Sur-sha) who plays an Irish girl named Eilis Lacey (pronounced Ay-lish) who emigrates to Brooklyn in the early 1950’s.  She leaves her mother and older sister behind in her hometown of Enniscorthy, Ireland as she seeks to start a better life in the United States.  After suffering from homesickness, she meets an Italian-American boy named Tony Fiorello (Emory Cohen) and falls in love and gets married.  When sudden tragedy forces Eilis to return to Ireland, she faces a moral decision to stay in Ireland to support her mother, or return to her husband in New York.

Scene from Movie BrooklynI personally enjoy the film for the immigration story, but also because of the romance involving a young Italian-American boy from New York City, which I have a lot in common with considering I too am an Italian-American from New York City (The difference being I am from the Bronx instead of Brooklyn).

Many of the New York scenes are actually filmed in Montreal – typical of Hollywood, however the Enniscorthy, Ireland scenes were all actually filmed in the real Enniscorthy.  Since we were in Ireland and fans of the movie, we decided to take an excursion to the small town to see where some of the scenes were shot.

The town itself is a quaint little Irish town in County Wexford, that is known for their potatoes and strawberries among many other things.  Upon entering the town we were pleased to find it just as we expected it to look, and it wasn’t long before we landed a couple of the town’s iconic scenes from the movie.

The first is M. Kelly’s Grocery Store, where Eilis worked in the beginning of the movie.  We were surprised to discover that the store front was still painted the same way it was during the filming!

In the movie screen shot below, you can see Eilis and her snooty boss Ms. Kelly opening up shop for the day.  Below it is a photo of me and our two boys in front of the storefront.

Scene from Movie Brooklyn

Us with Scene from Movie Brooklyn

Little did we know at the time, but the scenes where Eilis and her best friend Nancy (Eileen O’Higgins) go to the dance in Enniscorthy were filmed at the Athenaeum which was directly across the street from the grocery store.  Below you can see the movie scene where local Irish teenagers are shown entering the Athenaeum for the dance, and below that a photo I took of the Athenaeum front.

Scene from Movie Brooklyn

Us at Scene from Movie Brooklyn

For a few Euro, the lady at the front office of the Athenaeum let us upstairs to see the same room where the dance scenes were actually filmed.  Below are a couple of screen grabs from the movie showing the room, and then below that is a photo of Charity and the kids in the same room.  The room was being set up for a play while we were there; therefore chairs are set up across the dance floor.  You can tell by comparing the shots, that some modifications were done to the room for the movie – such as sconces were added to the walls, light fixtures hanging from the ceiling, and the lower walls were painted green.

Scene from Movie Brooklyn

Scene from Movie Brooklyn

Us with Scene from Movie Brooklyn

There were a few other scenes filmed in and around the town however we didn’t have time to explore all of them unfortunately.  Some of these scenes included the church scene when Eilis returns home later in the film.  This was filmed at St. Aidan’s Cathedral in central Enniscorthy.  While we did not go to the cathedral, we could see the steeple from it clearly down Market Square.  (See photo below).

Town of Enniscorthy, Ireland

The Ireland beach scenes which were filmed at Curracloe Strand of County Wexford (A 30 minute drive from Enniscorthy).  This is the same beach used for the Normandy D-Day scenes in Saving Private Ryan.

Ireland is actually where many movies are filmed, even if they aren’t set in Ireland.  Some of these include Braveheart, Harry Potter, and Star Wars!





If you’re interested in the filming locations to other movies set or filmed in Ireland, feel free to drop me a line and I’ll get back to you with whatever I can answer.  Also, if you enjoyed this article, please leave me a comment below and let me know!  Thank you so much!

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This Post Has 6 Comments

  1. What a fun experience! One of my favorite movies is Lost in Translation which was filmed in Tokyo. I got a chance to have a drink in the bar where scenes where shot. It was so cool!

  2. I’ve never actually watched the movie myself, but I have been on movie sets in the past and sometimes it feels so surreal that your walking on a street where you’ve seen on TV. I actually lived in New Zealand and been to many a spots where the Lord of the rings had been filmed and even walked through Mordor. It was cool that the lady let you go upstairs in the Athenaeum and let you into the room where the dance scenes were filmed. I can imagine how many spots there are in Ireland where movies have been filmed before 🙂

  3. Fun stuff. When my daughter was growing up in Southern California, we lived near two former movie ranches … Big Sky, where Little House on the Prairie and Gunsmoke were filmed, along wit movies like “Coming to America,” and Corriganville, where the Lone Ranger TV shoe and many old Tarzan movies were made. Big Sky has since burned and Corriganville was mostly stone foundations and a cement lagoon, but it was big fun.

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