Tragic loss that led 'dogged' Heather to focus on passion for film

She and Ivan McMahon co-produced the 2026 comedy-drama film ‘Learning to Breathe Underwater’, which won the Audience Award at this year’s Galway Film Fleadh. It will be screened again in Galway this Sunday night as part of a five-day mini-festival, Generation Fleadh.

Heather is also Head of Development at the Film Fleadh, a role she’s held for over a decade, and she does publicity for the annual event which takes place in July.

Eight years ago, this woman who “can’t boil an egg”, also set up a food company First Bite, which now caters for most of the large film shoots in Ireland. She says her success is due to a great team.

“I’m not the one getting up at 4am,” she remarks of the work involved in feeding crews and actors.

But it's Heather who drives the business. It was her “ability to hustle”, as well as a phonebook filled with contacts that, in 2024, led Patrick O’Neill from Dublin's Wildcard Films to ask her and Ivan to co-produce 'Learning to Breathe Underwater'.

“Ivan has experience of every role in film-making and has been a line producer for more than 30 years,” says Heather of a man who began his career in Roger Corman’s Studios in Conamara in the early 1990s. Ivan has gone on to work on projects for BBC, Channel 5, RTÉ, Virgin Media and TG4 as well as SBS Australia. They include ‘The Young Offenders’, and ‘Dating Amber’ among many more.

Ivan has vast hands-on experience, “and I know everybody. Those are two good skillsets”, she says.

The pair certainly got things moving on 'Learning to Breathe Underwater', a film about imagination, loss and love, which focuses on eight-year-old Leo (Ezra Carlisle) and his dad (Rory Kinnear).

Leo’s best friend is a massive shark that his artist dad built into the roof of their home. Following his mother’s death, Leo deals with his loss by confiding in the shark. That’s until au pair (Oscar nominee Maria Baklava) challenges him and his grieving dad to re-engage with life.

The location chosen for their home was a house in Galway City's Wellpark. In the film, viewers do see the Wellpark house – but all the shots are external.

That’s because 70 per cent of the scenes were indoors and that house couldn’t accommodate the large cameras.

Ivan and director Rebekah Fortune examined 38 different houses across Galway for a suitable indoor location, but none was right. The best solution was to build one. But where?

The answer was “Hanger A at Galway Airport”, says Heather. Co-owned by Galway County and City Councils, this facility has been mostly idle since closing to commercial flights 15 years ago.

They contacted Galway County Council’s Arts Officer, “the wonderful Sharon O’Grady”, asking if it could be used, and told her the film had a €1.8milion budget.

That was on a Wednesday.

“By Friday we had got it.”

The house was built in Hangar A, with a ground floor, second floor and an attic space.

Shooting began on August 30, 2024, and finished on October 5, followed by post-production. 'Learning to Breathe Underwater' had its Irish premiere at the Fleadh last July when the audience voted it Best Film.

Heather and Ivan were delighted but there’s no resting on laurels for this duo, who have since worked on ‘Ar Ais Arís’, a drama for TG4. This co-production with Tailored Films, Portuguese company, BeActive and their company, Éiru, involved a five-week shoot in Corr na Móna and two weeks in Portugal.

In 2022, her company, First Bite, had done the catering on Pat Collins’ film, ‘That They May Face the Rising Sun’, much of which was shot around Corr na Móna, where they worked from the Údarás na Gaeltachta office. When it came to getting a production office for ‘Ar Ais Arís’, the Údarás was very supportive.“I contacted Nóirín in the office there and she was great. That’s local knowledge,” says Heather.

The main objective with Éiru is to “shoot films in Galway or at least in the Western Corridor”, says Heather of the company which develops new projects for cinema and TV. She and Ivan are currently working with the country’s film body Screen Ireland on three drama projects.

This part of filmmaking “is slow and arduous and takes time”, she says of securing funding from investors. “You're pushing things up a mountain.”

That’s where tenacity and drive come in, attributes Heather has in spades.

She grew up in Castlepark in the city, and money was tight when she was younger.

“I don’t want to be broke ever again,” she says of her determination.

One of the projects Éiru is working on with Screen Ireland is a TV series, being written by Heather’s mother, the poet, playwright and essayist, Rita Ann Higgins, whose poems include the powerful, ‘No one mentioned the Roofer’ about Heather’s late husband, Pat who died of cancer in 2017.

The TV series will be great, says Heather, who is determined to get it over the line. Her doggedness comes from her father, Christy, she says laughing.

“He’ll ring and if we don’t answer straight away, he’ll keep ringing until we do.”

That’s the approach she takes with funders, aiming to turn a no into a yes.

“If they say no, it means they’re talking to you,” jokes Heather, formerly a producer with Bloomberg, who later studied for an MA Journalism at NUIG and did her placement in ‘The Connacht Tribune’. Her son Oisín, who is now in Leaving Cert, was just a year old during that time.

Heather then decided to focus on PR, a career where ‘no’ is common and which has given her good experience in tenacity.

But film-making rather than PR is her passion.

And it was her grief after the death of her husband, Pat, when she was just 39 that made Heather realise she needed to pursue the work she loved – for her and Oisín. She did and it's working.

Being surrounded by people she trusts is crucial, she says

“I partner with people who know what they are doing. Ivan is an example. Find the good people and keep them close.

“And have my son, I have Dermot,” says Heather, referring to Oisín and to her partner.

With that support, she loves being busy, working mostly from the kitchen table of her Tirellan home,

“The more balls in the air the better,” she laughs.

For more details on events in Generation Fleadh, go to www.galwayfilmfleadh.com.