Fermanagh summers shaped Daisy Edgar-Jones for Austen role — SkimNews
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- Daisy Edgar-Jones credited childhood summers roaming fields in County Fermanagh — where her family lives and her mother is from County Down — with helping her prepare for the role of Elinor Dashwood in a new Sense and Sensibility adaptation, comparing her on-screen wandering to her countryside childhood "under the big sky."
- Edgar-Jones previously spent five months in Ireland filming Normal People (released 2020), and said she "always feels so welcome" returning, with her mother hailing from County Down.
- Caitriona Balfe, who plays Mrs Dashwood, grew up in a family of seven in Tydavnet, County Monaghan, and said the film's "sisterly dynamic" reminded her of her own childhood, calling the Dashwoods' "resilience" a "blossoming" even after financial ruin.
- Balfe said it is an "amazing time in Ireland right now for all the incredible art that is being produced here" and that she and her husband discuss moving back "all the time."
- Fiona Shaw plays Mrs Jennings and Hamnet's Bodhi Rae Breathnach plays youngest Dashwood sister Margaret, with production from Focus Features and Working Title.
- Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility was first published in 1811, most famously adapted in 1995 with Kate Winslet and Emma Thompson, and this new version reaches cinemas 25 September.
Why it matters: Balfe explicitly frames this production as part of a moment when 'incredible art is being produced' in Ireland, with three Irish lead actresses anchoring a major period adaptation from Focus Features and Working Title — concrete evidence of Ireland's rising pull as a destination for prestige film production.
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