Mel Gibson visit could signal ‘Braveheart boost’ for Leenane

Date Published: 23-May-2012

Braveheart star and director Mel Gibson was on a secret – and flying – visit to Connemara last week scouting locations for a blockbuster movie set in Ireland during Viking times.

And if the renowned – and sometimes controversial – Hollywood superstar found what he was looking for, it could be boom time for Leenane and the surrounding areas.

Gibson is scouting locations for a movie called “Berserker” and which is set in the Viking times in Ireland – about 1,000 years ago.

Gibson was on a short visit to Ireland and staying at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin when he took a helicopter trip to the far west. He had a conversation with some fish farmers on the Killary but did not say who he was or the reason for his visit.

From Leenane, Mel Gibson travelled to Clifden and had lunch in the Abbeyglen Hotel.

Berserker seems to be an apt enough title for the film judging from an interview Gibson gave in the US recently; he said the characters would not be likeable and that there would be rough and raw scenes involved.

Gibson co-wrote the draft script for the film with Randall Wallace, the man who wrote the screen version of Braveheart.

Off screen Mel Gibson has ran into storms of controversy over allegedly anti-Jewish sentiments – and he could do with another Braveheart-style success.

His last big movie, The Beaver, didn’t set the box office alight and his latest offering, Get the Gringo, is going out directly to DVD.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.