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Irish Independent
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
‘Everything was so beautiful': Jenna Ortega on filming season two of Netflix hit Wednesday in Ireland
The 22-year-old American actress, who reprises her role as Wednesday Addams, the morbid, sharp-witted teenager with psychic powers, said she had never visited Ireland before working on the new season. The new season returns Wednesday to the halls of Nevermore Academy, where fresh foes and woes await. Directed once again by Tim Burton, the latest instalment of the gothic hit welcomes a number of new cast members to the team including Joanna Lumley as Grandmama, Steve Buscemi as Barry Dort, the new principal of Nevermore, and Billie Piper as Isadora Capri, the school's new head of music. While the first season was filmed in Romania, the latest instalment of the popular series was shot in various locations around Wicklow, Dublin and Offaly. 'I'd never been to Ireland and it was wonderful,' said Ortega. 'My favourite thing was just how kind the people are, but also the countryside was really nice. I did my best to see as much of the island as I could while I was there. I went north, south, east, west, I went all over. I'm pretty proud of myself.' According to Tourism Ireland, some of the locations used to shoot the new series include Charleville Castle in Co Offaly, Dean's Grange Cemetery in Co Dublin and Ashford Studios in Co Wicklow. Lumley (79) said: 'I was pretty thrilled, because having filmed there a few times, in Ardmore Studios, I didn't know there was a studio even further south of that, and then to come to Ashford Studios was marvellous. 'There's something in Ireland which is slightly otherworldly and it embraced the whole feeling of Wednesday.' Buscemi (67) – famous for his roles in Reservoir Dogs and The Sopranos – said he enjoyed the Guinness. 'I was surprised at how much Guinness I could actually drink every day, never while shooting,' he joked. 'It was so lovely shooting there. The people are amazing.' ADVERTISEMENT Learn more Ortega added: 'Everything about Ireland was so beautiful and we had such a hard-working crew, and people who really just gave it their all, and were so skilled. 'But the only real challenge we had was fighting the green. It was so green there and it was so bright for the show. Suddenly the Addams looked alive.' Wednesday season two, in which Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones continues to play Morticia Addams, comes out on Netflix on August 6, with a second part coming on September 3. Created by cartoonist Charles Addams, the macabre family have inspired a 1960s TV show, and 1990s films starring Anjelica Huston and Christina Ricci, who also appeared in Wednesday season one as a teacher.
BreakingNews.ie
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- BreakingNews.ie
Everything was so beautiful: Jenna Ortega on filming Wednesday in Ireland
Jenna Ortega has praised the kindness of the Irish people and the beauty of the landscape after filming the second season of the Netflix hit Wednesday in the country. The 22-year-old American actress, who reprises her role as Wednesday Addams, the morbid, sharp-witted teenager with psychic powers, said she had never visited the island before working on the new season. Advertisement The new season sees Wednesday return to the halls of Nevermore Academy, where fresh foes and woes await. Directed once again by Tim Burton, the latest instalment of the gothic hit welcomes a number of new cast members to the team including Dame Joanna Lumley as Grandmama, Steve Buscemi as Barry Dort, the new principal of Nevermore, and Billie Piper as Isadora Capri, the school's new head of music. Director Tim Burton with Wednesday star Jenna Ortega (Ian West/PA) While the first season was filmed in Romania, the latest instalment of the popular series was shot in various locations around Wicklow, Dublin and Offaly. 'I'd never been to Ireland and it was wonderful,' said Ortega. Advertisement 'My favourite thing was just how kind the people are, but also the countryside was really nice. I did my best to see as much of the island as I could while I was there. I went north, south, east, west, I went all over. I'm pretty proud of myself.' According to Tourism Ireland, some of the locations used to shoot the new series include Charleville Castle in Co Offaly, Dean's Grange Cemetery in Co Dublin and Ashford Studios in Co Wicklow. Lumley, 79, said: 'I was pretty thrilled, because having filmed there a few times, in Ardmore studios, I didn't know there was a studio even further south of that, and then to come to Ashford Studios was marvellous. 'There's something in Ireland which is slightly otherworldly and it embraced the whole feeling of Wednesday.' Advertisement Dame Joanna Lumley is joining the cast of Wednesday for its second season (James Manning/PA) Buscemi, 67, famous for his roles in Reservoir Dogs and The Sopranos, said he enjoyed the Guinness. 'I was surprised at how much Guinness I could actually drink every day, never while shooting,' he joked. 'It was so lovely shooting there. The people are amazing.' Ortega added: 'Everything about Ireland was so beautiful and we had such a hard-working crew, and people who really just gave it their all, and were so skilled. Advertisement 'But the only real challenge we had was fighting the green. It was so green there and it was so bright for the show. Suddenly the Addams looked alive.' Wednesday season two, which sees Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones continuing to play Morticia Addams, comes out on Netflix on August 6 with a first part and a second part coming on September 3. Created by cartoonist Charles Addams, the macabre family have inspired a 1960s TV show, and 1990s films starring Anjelica Huston and Christina Ricci, who also appeared in Wednesday season one as a teacher.
Irish Daily Mirror
18-07-2025
- Climate
- Irish Daily Mirror
The Open live updates from day 2 at Royal Portrush
Day two of The 153rd Open Championship has commenced at Royal Portrush as Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry aim to work their way up the leaderboard. Both McIlroy and Lowry finished day one on one-under-par, leaving them three shots off the the leaders. Some 280,000 spectators from across the world are set to descend on the Co Antrim venue to see the very best golfers in the world battle it out for the famous Claret Jug. At 6.35am, day two began with Stewart Cink (US), Marc Leishman (Aus), and Matteo Manassero (Ita) kicking off proceedings. McIlroy is the first Irish golfer out on the course on Friday. The career Grand Slam holder will get his second round at Royal Portrush underway at 10:09am alongside Justin Thomas and Tommy Fleetwood. Tom McKibbin and Padraig Harrington, who kicked things off on Thursday morning along with Nicolai Hojgaard, begin their second round at 11:26am. Darren Clarke will be out around his home course at 12:53pm with Lucas Herbert and David Riley. Lowry will begin his round at 3.10pm, with the weather expected to get worse as the day goes on. Yesterday, for day one of the tournament, the crowds included actor James Nesbitt, US ambassador to the UK Warren Stephens, First Minister Michelle O'Neill and deputy First Minister Emma Little Pengelly. The crowds, ten deep in places, endured heavy rain showers in the early afternoon before the sun finally broke through not long before McIlroy himself appeared at the first fairway. You could have heard a pin drop as people stretched every sinew and used all possible vantage points to get a glimpse of the Holywood man taking his first shot of the tournament. 09:03 Jane Corscadden Tourism NI chief executive John McGrillen said: "Overall, we reckon this is going to be worth about £213 million to the Northern Ireland economy. There are two elements to that. The first element of that is the direct spend. We expect people to spend about £63 million in Northern Ireland as a result of attending this event. "And there's about £150 million of value in terms of international promotion. Tourism Ireland will be sticking ads on TV in the midst of all of the promotion of this. Over the course of the event it just magnifies the audience that we would have." Read the full interview here. 09:00 Jane Corscadden South Africa's Christiaan Bezuidenhout plays from the 1st fairway during day two of The 153rd Open Championship at Royal Portrush this morning. South Africa's Christiaan Bezuidenhout plays from the 1st fairway during day two of The 153rd Open Championship at Royal Portrush (Image: Brian Lawless/PA Wire.) 08:58 Jane Corscadden Yes, re-admission will be permitted. Ticket holders will only be permitted to re-enter The Open on the same day as long as they present the following on re-entry i) a ticket valid for that day's play, and ii) an official, untampered, re-entry wristband that must be collected from the exit gate when initially leaving The Open. Spectators will not be able to enter The Open with a ticket that has already been used that day without an accompanying official and untampered re-entry wristband. 08:27 Jane Corscadden After heavy rain was experienced on the course yesterday during a thunderstorm warning, the weather is gearing up to be calmer today. The Met Office said: "Overcast changing to light showers by lunchtime." A high of 20C can be expected. Saturday will have a high of 20C, with sunny intervals changing to cloudy by late afternoon. For the final day of play on Sunday, we can expect light rain changing to sunny intervals in the afternoon, and a high of 21C. 08:22 KEY EVENT For the full list of tee times for today, click here. 08:20 Jane Corscadden No, you cannot park beside the course at Royal Portrush, with park and ride facilities operating to the site instead. Dedicated buses will operate from park and ride sites to transport spectators arriving by car to the course. Car parking passes will be available to purchase on arrival at a cost of £22 per day per vehicle from Wednesday 16th to Sudnay, July 20th. A £5 discount will be applied to car parking passes purchased in advance (up to the day before). To purchase car parking at The Open please click here. 08:18 Jane Corscadden Gates at Royal Portrush opened at 6am yesterday, and opened at the same time today. Gates open at 7am on Saturday and Sunday. On Thursday and Friday, play began at around 6.35am. 08:17 Jane Corscadden We will bring you the latest highlights from day two of The 153rd Open Championship.
RTÉ News
16-07-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
Portrush return a fitting time to mark a glorious era
The return of the Open Championship to the north Antrim coast, so soon after its last visit, has been taken as an appropriate time to mark Irish golf's years of plenty on the world stage. Tourism Ireland has produced a glossy documentary, screened last week on the Sky Sports Golf Channel, called 'This is Open Country' celebrating the last two decades of Irish success in the Open Championship, and in the majors more broadly. The facts and figures are well known at this stage. Between Padraig Harrington rattling in his nervy bogey putt on the fourth play-off hole in Carnoustie in 2007 and Rory McIlroy collapsing into a puddle of emotion on the 18th green at Augusta last April, Irish golf has racked up 11 major championship wins. Seen in a broader historical context, this is an extroardinary burst of success. Back in the latter part of the 20th century, winning majors was something Irish golfers just didn't do. In those innocent days, the best we could hope for was one of our boys taking down an American big-shot in the Ryder Cup singles, becoming the toast of the continent and then getting tossed in the lake at the Belfry while draped in a tricolour. Fred Daly's victory at Royal Liverpool in 1947 on a score of +21 - take that, USGA - was the island's sole major championship victory and occurred during an era when the top American professionals didn't tend to bother with the 'British Open'. The only US player in the vicinity of the leaderboard for Daly's win was Frank Stranahan, who crucially was still an amateur player at the time. Sam Snead and Ben Hogan played the Open Championship only once during their pomp and both won it once. Snead's meagre winning purse didn't come close to covering the expense of travelling over and he spent the week at St Andrew's in foul humour, like Red Foreman being forced to endure a holiday in the south of France. It wasn't until Arnold Palmer and his quest for a 'modern grand slam' in 1960 - in partial emulation of Bobby Jones' feat in the amateur era 30 years earlier - that the Open Championship recovered its gilded status among players from across the pond. The 'majors' as we recognise them today were established then though not everyone was on board. Christy O'Connor Snr had been the best player on the British & Irish circuit - ie, the effective forerunner of the European Tour - in the late 50s and early 60s, and he ran the Open Championship close a few times, finishing runner-up behind Peter Thompson in 1965. Harry Bradshaw subsequently advanced the theory that O'Connor was ambivalent about the idea of winning the Open Championship, reasoning that this would change his life. And he didn't want that. O'Connor famously turned down 20+ Masters invitations during his heyday, reasoning that his game wouldn't be in good nick at the time of the year and that it didn't make economic sense. In the 80s and 90s, Irish golfers were mostly TV spectators when the American majors rolled around. Europeans had a legendary spell of dominance in Augusta in those years, though this country didn't share in this bonanza. The other US majors, behind a TV paywall from the mid-90s, were remote to the lives of the average Irish pro and always seemed too suffused in Americana to be accessible. The US Open was typically won by nationalistic Yanks and/or Republican party donors like Payne Stewart or Lee Janzen. The PGA Championship, the major with the least distinctiveness and grandeur, was won by Americans 95% of the time and then occasionally by the odd Antipodean or else Gary Player. The Open Championship, by contrast, always held a degree of Irish interest. Every now and again, a European Tour stalwart from these shores would make a run at it. Christy O'Connor Jnr finished tied-third at Sandwich in 1985, two strokes behind Sandy Lyle, having begun with a sensational 64 on Thursday to take a four-stroke lead after Round 1. Eamonn Darcy was right in the mix in Birkdale in '91, only one shot off the lead heading into the final round after an excellent 66 on Saturday. Paul McGinley was leader at the halfway point alongside Tom Lehman in Royal Lytham in '96 and then Clarke was in the hunt in Troon in '97, finishing tied-second. By the turn of the century, expectations had been raised. Harrington, with his obsessive work ethic, had embarked on the journey which would culminate in his three major wins in 2007 and 2008. The dramatic playoff win over Sergio Garcia at the most feared Open Championship course was seismic at the time and feels even more so in retrospect. Harrington's wins had a galvinising effect on the rest of Irish golf. A major frontier had been breached. As McGinley indicated in the documentary, Clarke, who was perceived to have missed the boat, almost took Harrington's wins as an affront, believing in his bones he was a better player. In 2011, at 42, he became the oldest debut major winner since Roberto Di Vincenzo in 1967. By then, McIlroy was already a superstar. Three years later at Royal Liverpool, having recently recovered from a turbulent, year-long slump, he won by two strokes to add to his haul of majors. And it was surely only a matter of time before a green jacket completed the set... Five years later, the decade was closed out in riotous fashion, Shane Lowry cantering to victory as the Open returned to Royal Portrush for the first time in 68 years. From an international perspective, there was probably little enough drama down the strech, with Lowry sitting on a comfortable lead. On that Sunday, it felt like Ireland had formally co-opted the Open Championship and was having a party on home soil, while the rest of the world watched on, their noses pressed against the window. There's little mystery as to why it's the major most suited to Irish players. No country in the world is more blessed with glorious links courses and the weather is less of an issue for our lads than it is for the Jupiter, Florida set. It's an American golf nut's idea of heaven, traipsing around the Irish coastline with their golf bag in the boot, taking in Ballybunion, Lahinch, Old Head of Kinsale, et al. "This is the best that life that has to offer," golf writer - and 'Full Swing' talking head - Dan Rapaport wrote this week ahead of a six-day long golf binge, which began in Portmarnock. It also helps to explain why the US golf sickos and podcasters get so irate whenever the Irish Open is held at a parkland venue, as it is again this year. They at least get their Irish links fix at the Open Championship. The tournament's speedy return to Portrush indicates that it's become a fully-fledged part of the famous 'rota'. Turnberry has fallen out of favour, to the dismay of many, not least its current owner in the White House. Xander Schauffele could be forgiven for being a tad irked at the narrative in Antrim this week. One local reporter appeared to skim-read their brief and asked Lowry this week about his chances of emulating Padraig Harrington's feat of winning it back-to-back. The 2019 champion responded diplomatically that Schauffele was the only player capable of pulling that off this year. Regardless of how things are going, Lowry will presumably refrain from crying out 'F**k this place' as he did at various stages at the last two major venues. Outside of the majors, the 2019 champion has enjoyed a consistent year, even if that tour win has remained frustratingly elusive. The last Open champion to win twice at the same course, meanwhile, was Tiger Woods at St Andrew's in 2000 and 2005. McIlroy has less to improve upon from his harrowing experience in 2019. He should at least be able to muster a better start. And he was in fine form in Scotland last weekend, finishing runner-up behind Chris Gotterup. He is again in a relatively buoyant mood, having recovered from his strange post-Masters funk, where he seemed suddenly bereft of motivation and severely miffed following the driver-gate fallout. Oddly enough, World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler is in the midst of an existentialist phase of his own. In a startlingly open press conference, the three-time major winner admitted that the afterglow of victory doesn't be long burning out. It was a wonderfully honest performance even if the words "I'm not here to inspire the next generation of players because what's the point?" probably won't be included in his next Rolex ad. With another golfer - Brooks Koepka, for instance - such a disclosure might have sounded alarm bells for their week. With Scheffler, the suspicion is he'll be even more relaxed and composed come the weekend. Elsewhere, Jon Rahm, after a dismal first year in the majors after joining LIV, looks back in the groove in 2025 and is among the favourites. The Irish contingent, meanwhile, will be centre-stage in the first two days at least. Golf fans here should savour that while it lasts. History reminds us it may not always be the case.
Belfast Telegraph
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Belfast Telegraph
NI ice cream parlour releases specially-themed flavour ahead of The Open: ‘It has been extremely popular'
Morelli's in Portrush has worked up the creation – with each ingredient used to symbolise some link to the golf course. Daniela Morelli-Kerr, from Morelli's Ice Cream, said the new theme has been very popular, especially with the warm weather over the last week. 'Tourism Ireland contacted us with the view of making an ice cream especially for the golf,' she explained. 'They asked us if golf was an ice cream what flavour would it be, and this drove us to create a new flavour. 'The new flavour is called 'Golf', and it has three elements to it – it has a white Italian peppermint base, with ceremonial matcha green tea to represent the green grass of golf and a Sea buckthorn fruit ripple, to represent the dangerous shrubbery that the golfers play near. 'All three of these elements represent what golf is as a whole, and it has been extremely popular and delicious. 'We have been extremely busy because of the July 12 weekend and because of the weather, so this flavour is particularly popular.' The outlet has also teed up a sweet tribute to Rory McIlroy – immortalising the Holywood hero in over 2.5m sprinkles at its Portrush store. Who is Rory McIlroy and what is golf's Career Grand Slam? The mural was created by artist Triskill. Daniela said it was a family collective idea to create the mural. 'We did a mosaic when the Open came to Portrush in 2019 when Francesco Molinari came,' she explained. 'There was a really good reaction from the public and so we had to do it again with Rory." She added: 'As one of Ireland's oldest ice cream companies, we knew that we had to make something colourful and tasty. 'What better way to celebrate Rory's achievements than by creating a mural made entirely of our sprinkles. 'The design looks fantastic, and we're excited to welcome thousands of golf fans to our store to see the mural during what's going to be an exciting time for our town.' The mural is on show between July 9 and July 31.
