Biopic of O’Carroll’s real-life mammy set to be made
So it seems fitting that plans are under way to make a movie based on the colourful life of Maureen O’Carroll, the late mother of the creator.
Brendan, 61, has made no secret of the fact that both the physical appearance and antics of his comic alter-ego Agnes Brown, are based on his memories of his mother.
And now millions of fans of the smash-hit show may soon be able to judge for themselves how close the fictional matriarch is to Maureen, after it was revealed a biopic is set to be made about her remarkable life.
Eilish O’Carroll, one of Maureen’s 10 children, said she believes her mother — a pioneering Dubliner who was a trail-blazing and campaigning Labour TD in the 1950s — deserves to be the subject of movie project.
Eilish, 62, who plays Agnes Brown’s best pal Winnie McGoogan in the award-winning sitcom, said: “I was approached by an independent producer, who said she was really, really keen to do something on my mother.
“It’s in its infancy, but she has come up with a treatment and done the very first draft. Even I, on reading the treatment, went, ‘My God, this is a woman I’d love to sit down with and ask her to tell me about her life’.”
Maureen, who was 71 when she died in 1984, is still remembered in Dublin’s Northside as a fearless left-wing politician, who famously took big food companies to court in a bid to stamp out overcharging.
She became prominent as a TD on issues of adoption, and pioneered the admission of women to the gardaí.
She reared her 10 children in a council house in Finglas and adopted one more — a little boy trapped in a reform school.
After losing her Dáil seat in 1957 and her husband to cancer the following year, she set up a women’s refuge and become a leading trade union official.
In an interview on TV3’s , Eilish added: “A lot of women have been written out of history, but it will be lovely for this woman to finally have her day.”
Brendan, Maureen’s youngest child, has spoken in the past of the close bond he still has with his mother and how she remains a guiding light to him even after her death. He previously said that a vision of her inspired him to turn his life round when he was facing financial ruin. In a recent interview, he said: “When I’m writing, I think, ‘What will Agnes do?’ and then wonder what my mother would do. She gives me the answers. My mother still speaks to me every day.”
Last weekend the first-ever live episode ofwas watched by around seven million viewers in total on BBC and RTÉ.
