Trim granny says filming Oscar movie evoked memories of childhood summers in Carnaross

A WOMAN who was born above a famous Dublin pub in the 1940s says playing a part in the Oscar nominated film, An Cailín Ciúin took her back to her childhood summers spent in the countryside in Carnaross.

Bernadette O'Sullivan was born in an upstairs bedroom of McDermott's pub (now Flannery's) in Camden street in 1944. Sadly after her mother passed away, Bernadette and her brother were sent to spend their summers with their uncle, John Mulvaney at his farm in Whitegate Cross near Carnaross.

The 79-year-old who was cast as a grandmother in An Cailín Ciúin said filming at the farmhouse in Summerhill "took her back" to her own childhood.

"The experience was great it brought me back to my childhood. It is exactly like what went on when I was young in the country setting.

"My mother died when I was young so my father packed us off the country!

"We had long hot summers and you would be out all day running around in your bare feet and making hay. My favourite memory is going to mass on a pony and trap on a Sunday, I loved that.

"We fed the Chicken and hens and got the eggs that they laid and we watched the milk being churned.

"It was great freedom coming from the city. I ran around in my barefeet for the whole three months and when I had to put my shoes on going back to Dublin I didn't know what hit me.

"My uncle had a field and local lads used to come and play football and we'd watch them every evening and run around the hills and the fields.

"When I got to be a teenager I used to go to dances in Virginia and I'd get a lift back on the cross bar of a bike!"

When Bernadette's friend heard the makers of An Cailín Ciúin were looking to cast a grandmother, only one person came to mind as the Dublin native explains!

"My friend Carol saw an ad saying they were looking for a grumpy old granny for the film and she said she knew somebody who would fit the bill!" she said.

"I am only in it briefly and I don't have any lines. I'm in the scene where the daughter and grand children are fighting and I am making disapproving faces!

"I was dressed in the most horrible clothes you could imagine and I had a wig! But it was a wonderful experience.

Bernadette describes growing up in "old Dublin" where everyone knew each other.

"My father had a pub so we lived over the pub in Dublin, there was no where to go and play, it was an entirely different lifestyle but it was great fun. I had the best of both worlds.

"It was known as McDermott's when I was there. I was born upstairs in the pub. We had great times there, the traders were all outside selling their apples and oranges, it was old Dublin. I loved every minute of it.

"Women were served separately in the little snug, they weren't allowed sit with the men, they had a little hatch where they could get their drink through. Everybody knew everybody. We had good times."

"I went to school in The Holy Faith School where the Westbury is now on Clarendon Street."

Bernadette's father sold the pub on in the early 60s and the family moved to Crumlin where her father took over another pub.

"We went to a pub in Crumlin and there were daughters of the customers we had in Camden St because they had all moved out to Crumlin."

Despite being born in one of the most famous pubs in Dublin, Bernadette says she has never returned.

"I couldn't go back, there are too many memories," she said. "I couldn't ever go back to where I lived."

Bernadette who continued her links with Meath attending Mercy in Navan as a border did go back to the royal county, settling in Trim in a full circle moment to be closer to her daughters. Bernadette has two daughters, Ann and Jean and grandchildren Noah , Meaghan, Amelia and Ethan.

"I never thought all those years ago running around the fields of Carnaross that I'd back in Meath now all these years later,"she said.