Waking Ned

Couple of days ago, I bought a lottery ticket. The prize was not huge but still, my roommate and I dreamed of many things from a brand new tenori-on to any graduate program abroad. At around 21:30 that day, I found out that I did not win anything, not even the smallest prize. Yet still, it was fun and exciting waiting for the result. The old man named Ned in this movie, however, is lucky for he wins the huge prize of over 6 million pounds, yet no so lucky to take it and spend, for he dies of a heart attack the minute he hears the result.


Waking Ned is a brilliant comedy set in a little village called Tulaigh Mhór (Tullymore) in Ireland. One of the most exciting things for some people in this town is the weekly lottery. The movie starts with that week's results being announced and the first people we meet is Jackie and Annie O'Shea, an old couple who are one of the regulars of lottery and they do not win anything as usual that week. However, Jackie finds out, from a little piece of information in the newspaper, that the winner is from their village. So a search for that lucky person starts by Jackie (Ian Bannen), his wife Annie (the beautiful Fionnula Flanagan) and his best friend Michael (the amazing David Kelly), among the people in the village. They buy drinks to make them talk, pretend to be their best friends and they even prepare a dinner party for the 18 regular lottery players. Just when they spend lots of money searching for the winner, they finally realize that one of those regular players, Ned, has been missing in the party. Thus, Jackie takes one piece of the dinner to Ned, sure that he is the winner, only to find out that Ned has been dead for days since the lottery night.

So what happens next? Jackie, seeing Ned in his dream that night and interpreting it as Ned wanting him to claim the prize, comes up with a brilliant idea: they will act as if he is Ned, and take the money, sharing it among the O'Shea couple and their good friend Michael. However, things do not quite go according to plans and poor Michael has to act as Ned, which convinces the guy from the general directorate of national lottery but he is still to make an investigation in order have the other people in town to certify that Michael certainly is Ned. Therefore, with a little change in the plan, Jackie and Michael decide to share the prize with all the town, which makes a total of 52 people, and this becomes the little gift Ned Devine leaves to those people, right before, and after, his death.



The 1998 movie Waking Ned is a heartwarming and hilarious comedy and directoral debut by Kirk Jones. Yes, it surely has a sad part in it, and yet, it all turns out to be a story of friendship, hope and innocent dreams. The relationship of Michael and Jackie is one of a kind which everyone would like to have, a life-long friendship filled with love, loyalty, laughter and tears every once in a while, thus, caring for and looking after each other. The speech Jackie gives in Ned's funeral about his friendship with Michael (a little twist in the names about which I will not give the details here, not to spoil it) is one that would bring tears to your eyes, while smiling or maybe even laughing. Not only that, but also the carefully developed, mostly uniquely personified, characters in the town are all brilliant, and all that human touch blended well with the peaceful nature of Isle of Man leaves you with a perfectly happy mood in the end. I watched the movie twice, first a few years ago, second, last night, and I had the same mood after both.


Do not watch only the movies that really matter the most to the world, to humanity. Do yourself a favour every once in a while, to just laugh, after all, life is not only about some serious subject matters that we usually think about, scowling. Take some time and see Waking Ned, to toast to life, while you're still alive.