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  "path": "/articles/the-script-of-every-american-movie-set-in-ireland",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-17T17:45:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.mcsweeneys.net",
  "textContent": "**FADE IN.**\n\n**EXT. COUNTRYSIDE – DAY**\n\nOpen on rolling hills of violently oversaturated green. The scenery suggests a temporal twilight zone, some time between 1745 and the present day.\n\nAgainst all statistical likelihood, it is not raining.\n\nWe zoom in on any ginger AMERICAN actress getting off a tour bus. She steps directly into a pile of cow dung / a procession of priests / the Troubles.\n\nAn OLD MAN appears over the crest of a hill, accompanied by a SIMPLE-MINDED FOOL and a DOG. The OLD MAN stares across the hills in a wise and vaguely mystical way.\n\nOLD MAN\nThe path is just a road that hasn’t found its way home yet.\n\nHis accent is geographically incoherent yet easily understandable to a global audience without subtitles.\n\nFiddle music begins.\n\n- - -\n\n**INT. MURPHY’S PUB – DAY**\n\nIt is 9 a.m. Everyone is holding pints.\n\nThere are no clues that fashion and technology have progressed since 1956.\n\nThe AMERICAN enters. The pub falls silent.\n\nBARMAN\nWhat can I get you?\n\nAMERICAN\nI’ll take a Guinness.\n\nCheers and immediate acceptance from the crowd. The AMERICAN is now considered a friend.\n\nA LOCAL strikes up a song that describes a man’s unnatural level of preoccupation with his boat, sheep, or mother.\n\nEnter TOMEEN MAC O’SEAMUS. He is emotionally tormented by the deathbed confession of a parent, or recent emigration of a sibling, or a dispute over the sale of land, but also deeply respectful of women in a way that feels written by a man. He is dressed almost entirely in tweed.\n\n- - -\n\n**INT. MURPHY’S BAR – LATER**\n\nThe night in Murphy’s has become either a funeral that has turned into a party or a party that will turn into a funeral.\n\nRANDOM LOCAL\nThis is a craic.\n\nEmboldened by the demon drink, TOMEEN pulls the AMERICAN out for a dance. The OLD MAN looks on in a wise and vaguely mystical way.\n\nAMERICAN\nDon’t say much, do ya?\n\nTOMEEN\n(_quietly_)\nI feel plenty, though.\n\nHe does not elaborate further.\n\nThe song ends. TOMEEN and the AMERICAN part ways. They don’t kiss, but it is strongly implied that they could.\n\nCUT TO: The OLD MAN’S DOG sighing directly into the camera, ancient and wise.\n\nFiddle music swells.\n\n- - -\n\n**INT. COTTAGE – NIGHT**\n\nAn OLD WOMAN’s house. Like everywhere in this town, an open fire is the primary source of light and heat. The AMERICAN sits at the table as an OLD WOMAN solemnly pours tea.\n\nOLD WOMAN\nWhat brings you to Ballymacknockgall?\n\nAMERICAN\nI guess I’m just… searching.\n\nThis satisfies the OLD WOMAN completely. She nods in a wise and emotionally supportive way.\n\n- - -\n\n**EXT. COASTAL CLIFF – DAY**\n\nThe sea crashes dramatically.\n\nWe see the SIMPLE-MINDED FOOL laughing at something unrelated.\n\n- - -\n\n**EXT. ROAD – DAY**\n\nThe AMERICAN is waiting for the bus back to Dublin Airport.\n\nIt is still not raining.\n\nA coach pulls up. It is unclear whether the AMERICAN boards it.\n\n- - -\n\n**EXT. FIELD – DAY**\n\nTOMEEN, who, despite being of working age, has no visible employment, skips stones across a lake. He spends several moments moving between his two main emotions, rage and brooding, in a photogenic way.\n\nThe OLD MAN materializes out of nowhere. Despite TOMEEN being functionally mute, the OLD MAN knows every intimate detail of his emotional interior. The OLD MAN delivers a monologue that unlocks TOMEEN’s trauma and perfectly addresses his specific fear of commitment.\n\nOLD MAN\nA man is like a stone in the shoe of the world. The wind doesn’t blow for the man who has no sails, but it’ll sure as hell wet his whistle if he’s looking for the pot at the end of the well.\n\nOLD MAN then politely exits so that TOMEEN can decide to aggressively pursue a woman he danced with for five minutes a week ago.\n\n- - -\n\n**EXT. ROAD – DAY**\n\nThe main route to the capital city consists entirely of one-way, single-file back roads.\n\nThe bus gets stuck in a flock of sheep.\n\nThe BUS DRIVER makes no effort to intervene. None of the passengers complain or even react, even though they are on an express bus to an airport.\n\n- - -\n\n**EXT.ROAD – DAY**\n\nTOMEEN finally catches up with the bus and skids in front of it to block it. The bus stops instantly. No horn, no protest.\n\nThe AMERICAN gets off the bus.\n\nA torrential downpour begins, finally.\n\nTOMEEN\n(_immediately soaked to the skin in a way the camera lingers on approvingly_)\nStay.\n\nAMERICAN\n(_equally soaked, but filmed with careful discretion_)\nOkay.\n\nTOMEEN and the AMERICAN hug and kiss in the rain. The BUS DRIVER looks on impassively.\n\nThe AMERICAN does not retrieve her suitcase before the bus pulls off.\n\nThey are now a committed couple. There is no discussion of visas, employment, housing, or even the most basic aspects of Irish life.\n\n- - -\n\n**INT. MURPHY’S BAR – DAY**\n\nIt is 10 a.m. Everyone is already singing.\n\nTOMEEN stands at the bar, having undergone all emotional development off-screen. The AMERICAN stands beside him. She is now less American, yet still somehow completely American.\n\nThe BARMAN pours two pints of Guinness without asking.\n\nA slow fiddle cover of a Cranberries’ song swells.\n\nAn emotional AMERICAN VO explains Ireland and its history, specifically as a country that exists primarily to facilitate American personal growth.\n\n**FADE OUT.**",
  "title": "The Script of Every American Movie Set in Ireland"
}