Waking Ned Devine

When word reaches Jackie O’Shea (Ian Bannen) and Michael O’Sullivan (David Kelly), two elderly best friends, that someone (Ned Devine, portrayed by Jimmy Keogh) in their tiny Irish village of 52 people in Tulaigh Mhór (Tullymore) has won the Irish National Lottery’s Lotto game, they, along with Jackie’s wife Annie (Fionnula Flanagan), go to great lengths to find the winner so they can share the wealth. After a chicken-dinner plot to narrow down their list of suspects, they pay a midnight visit to the only absentee: Ned Devine. They find Ned in his home, still holding the ticket in his hand, a smile on his face and dead of shock. Jackie is later convinced by a dream that the deceased Ned wants to share the winnings with his friends, as he has no family to claim the ticket. Elsewhere in the village, Maggie O’Toole (Susan Lynch) continues to spurn the romantic interests of her old flame, “Pig” Finn (James Nesbitt), a local pig farmer. Finn is convinced they belong together, as he thinks he is the father of her son Maurice, but she cannot abide him due to his ever present odor of pigs. After discovering that the lottery winnings are far greater than anticipated, Jackie and Michael are forced to involve the entire village in fooling the claim inspector. The 51 villagers enter a pact to pretend that Ned is alive and well, by having Michael pose as him, even to the point of changing the real Ned’s funeral into a service for Michael when the claim inspector wanders into the church. However, the local curmudgeon, Lizzie Quinn (Eileen Dromey), decides not to enter the pact and attempts to blackmail the entire village by reporting the fraud and receiving ten percent of the lottery share. However, later in the story, she apparently dies in a car accident when the claim inspector’s car spins out of control and forces an oncoming van, with the village priest as the driver, to crash into the phone booth she was using to report the fraud. A slapstick scene results as the old bat screams as the phone box plummets into the sea. The money is shared among the villagers after one of the villagers advises opening an offshore account in Jersey.As the village celebrates at the local pub, Jackie spots Maggie O’Toole, who is content that Pig Finn is going to give up pig farming to marry her now that he can afford to. Jackie approves, adding that Maurice needs a father in his life. “More than seven million pounds?” she asks, nodding to her son and revealing that the elderly Ned was actually the father of Maurice. Jackie urges her to claim the entire fortune, but Maggie is sure that Maurice needs a father more and the villagers need the money. —wikipedia