BOND star Pierce Brosnan is keen on buying a home in Ireland and says he should have done so “years ago”.
The Navan-born actor told Ryan Tubridy on Friday night’s Late Late Show that he hadn’t given up on the idea of a bolthole on the Emerald Isle.
Speaking from his home in Hawaii he said: “Ireland always holds a dear place in my heart.”
Golden Eye actor Brosnan married his wife Keely Shaye Smith at Ballintubber Abbey in Co Mayo in 2001.
The 007 star admitted: “There’s a part of me that wishes I had bought a little place there, but there’s still time for that.
“I mean, [Hawaiian island] Kaua’i is a bit like Ireland but with the heat turned up!
“But Ireland is very close to my heart. I grew up there in Navan, Co Meath as a young lad.
“My granddaddy built a lovely little house there on the banks of the River Boyne. I went to school at the Christian Brothers.
“I left Ireland as a boy of 11. August 12, 1964 - it was the same day actually that [James Bond] author Ian Fleming passed away.
“I only realised that many years later.”
He added: “I’m an Irishman abroad. My work as an actor has always been coloured by that sentimentality and that passion and that melancholia that we carry with us.
“That kind of fierce love of life and passion for people and communication. The bond is this lovely gift that keeps giving.
“From the James Bond days, I formed my little company to make films and I called the company Irish DreamTime.
“So Irish DreamTime with my late [production] partner Beau Marie St Clair and I, we made about 10 movies.”
Those ten movies included Evelyn, The Thomas Crown Affair and the Matador, and Brosnan revealed he hoped to return to Ireland to film another movie later this year.
He said: “I’m hoping to go back, God willing, [at] the end of the year to make another film called Youth. So Ireland pulls me back.”
“When I was over there doing the little movie I.T. we were down in Dalkey, which I love very much.
“I was saying, ‘I should’ve bought a place’. My wife was saying, ‘Well, you should’ve! I told you all those years ago when you were doing the Bond to go buy a place!’
“I think there’s still time to find some small cottage. I mean, the house that we have here is a cottage. It’s a three-bedroom cottage, so you don’t need much.
“All you need is a good bed, a good table to sit at, a lovely view and a bottle of wine!”
