THEY SAY YOU can make art out of anything – but making a comedy out of the true-life story about a monk who hijacked an Irish plane in order to find out the third secret of Fatima?But it’s all in a day’s work for actress/writer/director Janet Moran, who has crafted a funny and thoughtful play out of the true-life story that captivated Ireland in 1981.
She was particular taken by the moment Reynolds is asked about what exactly is the third secret of Fatima, and his response: “It’s a secret. Nobody knows.” “There are two elderly sisters, based on my own granny and her sister. You have a young couple who are sexually inexperienced and nervous going on honeymoon – that would have been more prevalent in 1981. You have a businessman who is a bit OTT and prefigures the Celtic Tiger.”
“Someone said to me the other day: if you made it up you wouldn’t believe it,” says Moran. She was very lucky that a friend of hers, who is 101, has a son who was on board the hijacked plane.She also watched the Scannal documentary and a documentary called The Holy Hijacker about the incident. “The Scannal documentary was the first time I really got a sense of how terrifying the situation was for passengers,” says Moran.