Film-maker bankrolls ‘Mulligan’s Millions’ restoration

A local film-maker is looking to restore a 55-year-old big screen production famed for having involved a cast of hundreds from around the Cavan Town.

‘Mulligan’s Millions’ was the brainchild of enigmatic priest and school teacher, Father Turlough O’Reilly.

Billed as by the ‘Cavan Scouts Film Unit’, it starred the young acting talents of Mel Doherty as ‘Mulligan’, and a host of others including the late John O’Connor, Bill Henry and many more.

Now multi-award winning director Padraig Conaty (‘You’re Not a Man at All’, ‘No Party for Billy Burns’) hopes to return the original to its former glory, and for modern viewing.

Through a side-project documentary, the Gowna native also aims to capture for posterity the life and excitement that gripped the imagination of a town at the time the filming was taking place.

“Fr Turlough is one of the main subjects of the documentary, and I’m trying to build a picture around him, what photo material is available, anecdotes, all of that,” says Padraig, who is asking people who remember the ‘Mulligan’s Millions’ to approach him with old archive material, from stories to photographs.

He was a really interesting character, anything I’ve heard so far has been funny, fond memories, of someone who wasn’t afraid to try be creative, and bringing people with him while doing it.”

The film ‘Mulligan’s Millions’, released in 1967, was well received.

It was shown across the county at various venues from the Denn Church Repair Fund shortly after release, to a meeting of the Cavan Association in Dublin.

That event, at the Clarence Hotel and chaired by Father Dan Breen, CC Bray, chair of the Association, was attended by Fr Turlough, who was a teacher of Science and Christian Doctrine at St Patrick’s College, Cavan.

In more recent years ‘Mulligan’s Millions’ was remembered at a Film Makers’ Evening and Networking Session in Cavan in 2005.

Hosted by the Cavan County Council Arts Office at the Farnham Arms Hotel, the evening was dedicated to local filmmakers, and was attended by around half-a-dozen of the original ‘Mulligan’s Millions’ cast.

A copy of ‘Mulligan’s Millions’, transferred to video by Pat Lee, was also shown.

Padraig, who delivered a mock Cavan Cola advert in recognition of Cavan Day recently, is being supported for this project by the Cavan Arts Office under a new scholarship aimed at supporting three visual artists whose work explores ideas that are of compelling interest to life and times.

The scholarships support research, development and exploration of artistic ideas and new work, and also provide a six-month residency within the studio space at Cavan Townhall.

He reflects, to produce a film in Cavan back in 1965, would have been a hugely ambitious task.

“For myself, what interests me most is the innocence to the whole thing, the idea this man had a creative impulse to do something as mad as making a film, and got half the town involved helping him do it. I love that,” laughs Padraig.

“Looking at the outcome, it’s incredible what they were able to achieve. There is a lot of fun in it, and that’s what I like as well. It’s of a time, a pureness of creativity, and it happened on our doorstep.”

It’s a project Padraig says has been at the “back of my mind” for several years.

That so many years have passed, and that a number of the main cast have also sadly passed away, is a key motivator.

“There are very few around now and the state the film is in, what people have, VHS, is in poor condition. The sound is very poor as well. So you can watch it for the novelty, but you can’t really enjoy it unless you’re really enthusiastic about what’s in it. So restoring is one of the two pronged approach I’m taking.”

That alone is expected to be extremely time-consuming.

The process, aside from cleaning up the audio, will see Padraig adopt of professional process to taking a photo of every frame before stitching them back together again.

“I’ve got my hands on the original film from the County Library Archive. You need very specific equipment, and then on top of that you have to figure out how to work the sound.

“So it’s still early, I’m figuring out those processes and hopefully develop those further over the coming weeks.”