On the Set of the Hit Movie Brooklyn

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.

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.

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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.  The 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.

I 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.

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.

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.

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).

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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