Season  2 of black comedy Obituary has completed filming in Ballyshannon

The filming of Season 2 of the black comedy Obituary has just completed  in Ballyshannon and the new series is set to be screened on RTE in September 2025.

The first season of the six-part series was shot in February 2022 and screened in October of that year. It proved to be a great success both locally, nationally and internationally. The screening of Season 2 will be looked forward to with much interest, not least because of the arrival of a new character into the office of the Kilraven News, the local newspaper involved.

Executive Producer is Paddy Hayes, who lives in Galway, has a very direct link to Donegal as he is married to Bruckless native Noelle Gallagher. Paddy has quite an amount of experience gained over the years in the film world.

“I did a lot of stuff for TG4. So Irish language drama has been my mainstay for the last 20 years.”

Among the projects he has been involved with was Foscadh, which was an Irish entry in the Oscars in 2021. However, Obituary is probably his biggest project in his career to date. 

“This is the first kind of international show that I’ve done. Because of the premise of Obituary,  it’s quite an easy one to pitch.  The name immediately captures the attention,” said Paddy, speaking to Donegal Live with just one week left of filming on Series 2.

“As a producer based in the west of Ireland I’ve always been hitting a glass ceiling in trying to sell stuff internationally, but this particular show with such an interesting idea behind it and great writing from a Castlebar native, Ray Lawlor, that it found that international market and that was able to bring in money.

“A lot of stuff I did before was all Irish funded but we had to bring in money from America and Europe to make this happen,” said Hayes.

“It is thanks in no small part to the streamers, the Netflix of this world. It would be very difficult to get enough in Ireland for this kind of show. A dark comedy isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. 

“But the fun part is what sells it. There’s a bit of craic in it and very west of Ireland. Ray (the author) grew up in Castlebar and earwigged on conversations in pubs. A lot of the dialect had the earthiness and authenticity of local Irish chat.

“That’s the beauty of Obituary. It started in the west of Ireland. It’s not someone coming in from America or from Dublin to tell a story. It’s very much a story that originated, is produced and shot in the west of Ireland,” said Hayes, who explains the background behind how Ray Lawlor created the series.

“He saw a documentary about the New York Times obituary department. They have an entire department dedicated to obituaries. And in the documentary they talked about doing these pre-obits. So you write an obituary for Michael Jackson so when he dies it’s ready to go.

“And he thought, hmm, could he use this. So in season one she (the main character Elvira Clancy) starts thinking about the people in the town who are a bit obnoxious. Maybe I’ll write a pre-obit for them. And it started that way and then she met one of them on a cliff. So it was kinda by happenstance that she started killing them. So it’s based on reality.”

The town involved in the drama is Kilraven and Ballyshannon was selected to represent Kilraven, something that was very pleasing to the Executive Producer.

Rossa O'Neill, Ballyshannon, Location Manager for the Obituary Series

The selection of Ballyshannon came about after an exhaustive trawl of locations along the west coast of Ireland as Hayes explains.

“Wrap Fund is one of our funders and they fund films and tv series from Clare up to Donegal.

“That’s where we focussed our recces on.  I live in Galway and it would be handy for me to film in Galway to be honest.

“But there was a distinctiveness about Ballyshannon that we didn’t see anywhere else. The hill is amazing. There is an Americana in Ray’s writing, for example, you have deer hunters in series one. It’s Irish but it has a nod to America.

“So we didn’t want it too Irish and Ballyshannon, the main street, there’s no Supermacs, there’s no Ladbrokes. It is a really unique town. The clock tower is flippin amazing. It almost speaks back to the future,” said Hayes.

And the bypass has been brilliant, less traffic on streets, no 18 wheelers.”  says Hayes, who remembers the traffic in Ballyshannon years ago when he was travelling to Bruckless where his wife, Noelle, is from.

“It is more sleepy (than other towns) and is a place where you might get away with a few more murders,” he laughs.

“We started in Killybegs  and went from there to Kilkee (Co Clare). We wanted a coastal town. What we saw in Ballyshannon and having Bundoran as an option for seascapes. The combination of the two had a magic that no one else had.

“It is a town closed in and the rest of the world doesn’t go through it.”

In Series 1 there was a great scene of a funeral coming down the town and the Producer says they have footage from a funeral parlour this time around, but no public cortege.

He points out that many other locations in the town have been used again in Series 2 and said the swimming pool was a great location, as was the main street and Dorrians Hotel. The main Kilraven Newspaper Office is the same.

“It is great to have everything central and close together. We have used loads of buildings and lots of private houses. If you were filming in Dublin and you wanted to change location, you would have to factor in at least an hour to get through traffic. It’s 10 minutes here. It makes a huge, huge difference.

“We shot in school as well, which looks amazing. And the cemetery at the top of the hill (St Anne’s),  where else would you get it.

“And in our lovely winter light, it’s just a magical place. Funny, it’s something you don’t see if you live here. But to us it really has a charm,” said Hayes.

The timing of shooting being in the late Autumn and Winter is very deliberate because of the nature of the Series.

“When you’re going killing people, you want to be doing it at night. So if you were filming in June and it doesn’t get dark until 11, it’s quite challenging.

“So the first season we shot in February so we had a lot of night. This season we started in September which had a bit more light but as the days got shorter we had a lot more night and the night scenes look amazing on screen.”

There has been a good local input again this year and many of the contacts made in Season 1 were very useful.

“In Season 1 we were trying to get up and running, but we made huge contacts, and we went back to those people to work on it again this year.

Conor Flannery from Tullaghan, a member of the production team

Among those locals heavily involved were Rossa O’Neill from The Port in Ballyshannon who was Location Manager and Hayes says he “has been a great asset.” Conor Flannery from Tullaghan is also a valued member of the backroom team. Among the office staff was Rachel Doherty from Carrick.

“We’ve had a blast here. I know it is a huge boost to the local economy. We’re always in grabbing our morning coffee and we have used local houses for accommodation of people working on the set.

“The shoot day can often be eight to six but that means costume and make-up are in two hours before that and they go home an hour after that. It’s a long gig, but very rewarding.”

The new series will again be released in six parts and it will be up to RTE to decide the exact date of when it will be screened. Along with RTE, the other main funders are Screen Ireland, Wrap Fund, Coimisiún na Meán and Hulu.

“It’s not our decision, it’s RTE’s decision. The first season went out in September and it was a good time for it. The days are closing in, the kids are back at school, put on a fire and watch Obituary. It’s a nice time to be watching tele. It won’t be in the summer, it’s not a summer show. You’ve got to put the slippers on and close the hatches, in case Elvira is lurking.

Very little is being given away about the new series although the main actor Siobhán Cullen (Elvira Clancy) is joined by Máiréad Tyers as Vivienne.

Paddy Hayes reveals something about the new editor Vivienne: “She plays the new boss in the newsroom. She is kinda bonkers and a force to be reckoned with, almost like a storm blowing through the place. And that’s her role. She’s a disrupter. She’s a Donald Trump. Imagine Donald Trump coming into the newsroom and changing everything in an erratic kind of way.

“Elvira likes her things smooth and she likes her little cosy number but this new force comes into the newsroom, it’s a real agent of chaos. It really disrupts what Elvira wants to do. And it’s comedic as well, she’s larger than life.

“It’s been great fun having this new crazy boss.”

But while it has been fun, there also has been a timescale involved and that was pretty tight. “It’s all locked in because there’s only a certain amount of money.  There was an 11 week  shoot and prep started seven weeks before that. So it’s 18 weeks all told,” said Hayes, who said the prep work to service the shoot, props, costumes, locations in particular was very important. There were three locations put forward for each shoot which means a huge amount of prep work.

“It’s quite a military operation and there’s a lot of moving parts, so you have to pull them all together. So the operation of that is key.”

The work of the production crew and actors is now complete and we will await the outcome come next Autumn.

Paddy Hayes (centre) Executive Producer of Obituary and who is married to Bruckless native Noelle Gallagher