Bina all set for the big screen

ONE of the great rural characters of Connemara – the late Bina McLoughlin from Leenane – is to be celebrated in film over the coming months with the making of a documentary on her life and times.

American historian Phil Brown from Massachusetts has teamed up with filmmaker Ed Hannigan to document the life and times of Bina McLoughlin, who died back in 2001.

A chance conversation that Phil Browne had with a local taxi driver while on holiday in Connemara back in 2016 sparked his interest in finding out more about Bina McLoughlin.

“We were passing a farm and little house when the taxi driver said to me light-heartedly: that’s where the witch lived. Then he started telling me the story of Bina, and ever since then, the seed was sown, to find out more about her,” Phil Browne told the Connacht Tribune this week.

Phil Brown’s film team will be in Leenane on the weekend of October 19 and 20 next in an effort to put together as much authentic information as possible on the Leenane sheep farmer as well as taking film footage in the area and gathering photos of Bina.

For the moment at least, the working title for the planned hour-long documentary is ‘The Last Shepherdess’ which Phil Brown hopes to have done and dusted over the coming two to three months and well in time for the St. Patrick’s Day TV specials across the world.

Anyone with anecdotes and information on the late Bina McLoughlin can make email contact with Phil Browne at: queenbinamc@gmail.com

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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