A new crime caper takes a trip through Ireland – from Antrim’s jagged coast to Mayo’s majestic hills
Claire Webb - 22 October 2020
Ireland’s lonely roads are the spectacular backdrop to a new film with gun-toting priests and a cast that includes Colm Meaney, Dylan Moran and Alec Baldwin. Pixie is a tongue in- cheek crime caper in which two young men stumble upon a stash of drugs and find themselves fleeing a Sligo gangster in a 1975 yellow Mercedes, with his scheming step-daughter Pixie in tow. Writer Preston Thompson came up with the plot after taking a road trip through the west of Ireland with his father Barnaby, who directs the film. “We drove from Sligo down to Clonakilty and never talked about making movies or making a movie in Ireland,” recalls Barnaby, “but clearly as we were going, he was quietly absorbing the scenery, and he came home and wrote the script.”
Pixie is set on Ireland’s west coast, but most of the film was shot around Belfast at the end of last summer. “I hadn’t been to Belfast since the late 80s and it bowled me over,” says Barnaby. “It’s an incredibly vibrant city. You go out on a Friday night and it’s kicking off in the best kind of way. And then you get in the car and drive 20 minutes out of the city, and you have this incredible countryside and coastline, and so to make a film like this it was perfect. There are shots that you would think must be a million miles away from anywhere and it was half an hour away from central Belfast. It was extraordinary how close the wilderness was. The scale of it and power of the landscape take you by surprise.”
Some of the most spectacular scenes were filmed along the A2 from Larne to Cushendall, a stretch of the Causeway Coastal Route that follows the coast from Belfast to Derry. “If you keep following the coast road north from Belfast, it becomes more and more wild and beautiful. You’ve got the ocean to one side, mountains on the other, great sandy beaches. They shot a lot of Game of Thrones up there.” To capture some of the sweeping panoramic shots, the cast and crew also spent a few days shooting on the west coast in County Mayo. When they first flee Sligo, Pixie and her reluctant partners in crime drive through the Doolough Valley, near Westport, where mountains loom over two desolate lakes. “That road isone of the most breathtaking roads you’ve ever seen in your life – the way it unfolds is just extraordinary. There is a scale to the wilderness you get there, which you get in certain places in Scotland. If you’re feeling brave, you can jump into the beautiful water of Killary Harbour at the end of the drive – I recommend it!”
The Doolough Valley is one of the scenic highlights along the Wild Atlantic Way, the official driving route that hugs Ireland’s rugged western coastline line from Cork to Donegal. In Mayo, it also takes you past Croagh Patrick, a mountain that overlooks the 365 islands in Clew Bay, where St Patrick is supposed to have prayed and fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. On the last Sunday in July, known as “Reek Sunday”, thousands of pilgrims climb it – some barefoot.
On their road trip, the Pixie cast and crew then headed south along the R366, which winds towards Galway. “Even the Irish crew were gobsmacked at the beauty and wildness,” says
Barnaby. “It is Joyce country.” Nothing, including damp days, could detract from the breathtaking views. “Even in the rain, it’s majestic. Some of my favourite shots in the film are where it’s raining or it’s just about to. Everybody loves a blue sky, but you get that great moodiness when the weather is more changeable.”
DRIVE THE COASTAL CAUSEWAY
This 150-mile driving route meanders along Ireland’s northern coast from Belfast to Derry with plenty of spectacular stop-offs, including:
THE GOBBINS CLIFF WALK, carved into the soaring basalt cliffs of the Islandmagee peninsula
THE IMPRESSIVE CAVES cut into the sea cliffs at the pretty seaside village of Cushendun
THE VIEWS OVER THE MULL OF KINTYRE from Torr Head, a rugged headland that has a picturesque cameo in Pixie
THE CARRICK-A-REDE ROPE BRIDGE, which has linked tiny Carrick island to the mainland for more than 250 years and is suspended 30m above the sea
THE HEXAGONAL STONE COLUMNS of the Unesco-listed Giant’s Causeway, a unique geological formation that legend says was the handiwork of giants.
Ireland’s lonely roads are the spectacular backdrop to a new film with gun-toting priests and a cast that includes Colm Meaney, Dylan Moran and Alec Baldwin. Pixie is a tongue in- cheek crime caper in which two young men stumble upon a stash of drugs and find themselves fleeing a Sligo gangster in a 1975 yellow Mercedes, with his scheming step-daughter Pixie in tow. Writer Preston Thompson came up with the plot after taking a road trip through the west of Ireland with his father Barnaby, who directs the film. “We drove from Sligo down to Clonakilty and never talked about making movies or making a movie in Ireland,” recalls Barnaby, “but clearly as we were going, he was quietly absorbing the scenery, and he came home and wrote the script.”
DRIVE THE COASTAL CAUSEWAY
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