The entirety of The Banshees of Inisherin takes place on the remote and fictional Irish island from which it derives its title. But Martin McDonagh’s new film, starring an impressive cadre of Ireland’s best and brightest, was actually filmed across a smattering of islands off the coast of the Emerald Isle—each more beautiful than than the next. The dark comedy quickly swells into an interpersonal epic, grappling with the petty and fickle natures of difference and enjoying all the while a backdrop so biblically verdant, jagged, and isolated that it’s no wonder two friends [Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson] opt to do battle on account of there being simply nothing better to do.
While McDonagh has ventured to other settings for his more recent films—In Bruges and Three Billboard Outside Ebbing, Missouri each boast names that speak for themselves—it’s good to see him return to Ireland. And he did so with a new collaborator, Phantom Thread production designer Mark Tildesley, who sat down with us to tell all on his process for inventing Inisherin.
Is Inisherin a real island?
No, we used a few different parts of the Aran Islands mostly. They’re right off the coast of Galway, you take this boat over and then you’re really at the mercy of the locals. There’s one actually called Inishmore where we did a lot. It was my first time working with Martin, who I’ve always admired, and my first time going out there—I’m an Englishman. There’s lots of unspoiled coast, it was just a matter of finding it. Ireland has this really vast and epic element, it's so big and sparse and green. We wanted to take advantage of different islands in the country rather than just one.
Across the Aran Islands, how much of what you were capturing was already there?
Not much. We built Pádraic and Siobhán’s [Kerry Condon as Farrell’s sister] house from scratch on the island—we found this property abutting that of a stonemason named Mickey, and Mickey helped us a great bit. Martin basically chose the view that he wanted, so that if he shot through the open door it would have this very particular framing of the sea. We went to the coastline and took a few steps back and there was the view that he wanted.
We had to lay down this sort of tarp and build on top of it, so that we weren’t building directly on the ground. And then we had to bring the pieces over on the ferry. We wanted local craftsmen, Mickey and a few others, and we got to use real stone on the exteriors from these guys. By the way–if you dismantle a stone wall or something on these islands to use the stone or transport it, you really do have to number each one so that you can put them back exactly as they were.
And what about Colm’s place?
After we wrapped on Inishmore, we went way up north [about 150 km] to County Mayo and Achill Island. There, we found this old whaling cottage nestled into this divot by the water where we only had to thatch the roof, carve one extra window, and add identical cladding around it [for reasons we will not spoil here]. All the beams were old beams, a lot of the stuff was salvaged. We didn’t buy anything. It was a fun experience trying to find that stuff. You can spend a lot of time trying to make something look old, but if you find something already that old you have a real patina and color already there. It suited his more eclectic personality. We brought strong colors inside: painted the ceiling black, with bright yellow walls and a red floor which is actually this old oilskin sailcloth.
On Achill Island we also used Keem Beach, which the characters each sort of get to trudge across in solitude. The idea was that they would be on this beautiful beach overlooking a vast and misty body of water, but that mainland Ireland really wasn’t that far away. The Irish Civil War is really going on just over there, everyone can hear it and see the flashes, sort of a parallel to the fight happening here between two friends.
What about the bar, which is so important, and all of the sort of paths and roadways that everyone walks along and sees each other? The planning makes everything rather social, so you’re always seeing your fellow townsfolk!
Exactly. We found the local quarry men who came with a lorry, and we had to cover these long stretches of road—a mile and a half, or so, and there was an awful lot of green to work with. Quite a lot of landscaping went on, actually, more than you’d imagine. Hopefully you think it looks natural when you watch the film. Like it’s how people are sort of getting around rather than something unused. For the village, with Mrs. O’Riordan the gossip’s shop, we had this concrete canvas of low fisherman’s buildings that we sort of built up. The bar had to be dark and warm and everyone on the island was really quite excited that we’d built it there for them.
