A man who died in a house fire near Kells in Co Meath has been named as Irish film location and production manager Martin O’Malley.
Mr O’Malley’s credits from the early 1990s include work on The Crying Game, The Commitments and Dirty Pretty Things.
Gardaí and emergency services were called to a house fire in the village of Moynalty near Kells at 9am on Monday, February 24th.
A man aged in his 60s, who has been named as Mr O’Malley, was pronounced dead at the scene, and the fire was extinguished by the local fire service.
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Mr O’Malley’s body was removed to Our Lady’s Hospital Navan where a postmortem examination was carried out. It’s understood foul play is not suspected.
Mr O’Malley worked as a location manager on Neil Jordan’s award-winning 1992 crime thriller The Crying Game. The Dublin man was also a location manager on the 1991 film The Commitments and had a small role as a priest in the movie.
He worked as first assistant director on numerous films and TV series from the 1980s, including Dirty Pretty Things, Educating Rita and Father Ted.
Film and television producer Alan Moloney recalled how Mr O’Malley was the “first choice” for the role of first assistant director for any international production which came to Ireland in the 1990s. “He was at the top of his game, very diligent, and he took a lot of time to train people on set,” Mr Moloney told The Irish Times.
“At that particular time, when the Irish film industry was very small, he was a larger-than-life character, he was very well known.”
Mr Moloney worked with Mr O’Malley on a number of productions in the late 1990s, including the BBC and RTÉ adaptation of John McGahern’s novel Amongst Women in 1998.
“I was 10 years younger than him and his support was very valuable to me; he was very generous with his time. I had nothing but time for Martin.”
