{"id":166542,"date":"2025-11-06T19:10:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T19:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/166542\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T19:10:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T19:10:18","slug":"bad-bridgets-book-to-become-margot-robbie-film-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/166542\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad Bridgets book to become Margot Robbie film \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an attic office on Belfast\u2019s<\/a> University Square, Prof Elaine Farrell\u2019s phone beeps with messages about her book being made into a Hollywood movie<\/a>. The academic has just finished four hours\u2019 teaching 19th century crime and punishment to Queen\u2019s University<\/a> students. She waves online to Prof Leanne McCormick, her co-author from Ulster University, who is at home in Coleraine sitting in front of an old map of New York<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is days since Variety broke the story<\/a> that Daisy Edgar-Jones will lead the cast in a film based on the historians\u2019 acclaimed book<\/a> about the forgotten lives of Irish emigrant women jailed in the US and Canada during the 1800s.<\/p>\n

Bad Bridget began as a research project<\/a> a decade ago. The pair laugh recalling the day they kept typing the name into a university computer because, <\/b>McCormick says, they were \u201creally worried it was somebody\u2019s porn name\u201d. The project grew into a podcast and a book called Bridget: Crime, Mayhem, and the Lives of Irish Emigrant Women.<\/p>\n

A fortnight ago they discovered Australian actor and producer Margot Robbie\u2019s LuckyChap company will produce the film. Rich Peppiatt, who wrote and directed the Kneecap<\/a> movie, will direct, with shooting due to begin in the North as well as in locations in the Republic next spring. Emilia Jones has also been cast.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the moment it feels a bit surreal,\u201d says Farrell. \u201cPeople are messaging me from home in Sligo and my parents are forwarding messages that people have sent, saying this is huge. Because we have been involved in this for so long, we\u2019re always thinking: \u2018is this really happening?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite seeing the script and realising \u201cit might happen\u201d (Peppiatt wrote the screenplay a year ago when he and Belfast producer Trevor Birney optioned the rights to the book), the academics were stunned to learn of LuckyChap\u2019s involvement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were really, really excited to hear that was happening, particularly because of the ethos around LuckyChap \u2013 the fact that they very much focus on female stories and female story tellers. We loved Barbie,\u201d says McComick.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that maybe Margot Robbie knew about Bad Bridget and that Bad Bridget had made it past her lips \u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Bad Bridget: The haunting untold stories of the Irish women who sailed to the US for a better life but ended up in jailOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The film centres on two sisters who flee their abusive father and cross the Atlantic on a famine ship to seek a new life in 19th century New York. Its working title is Bad Bridgets.<\/p>\n

Farrell and McCormick say they are glad the characters are fictional because they \u201cfeel quite close\u201d to the women they have researched.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been with them for several years. We gone through files; we might have held paper that they have also held; we traipsed through graveyards,\u201d says Farrell.<\/p>\n

They have just finished their second season of the Bad Bridget podcast, so the \u201ctiming is good\u201d, she says. <\/p>\n

\u201cRich knows film and I think we have to trust what he is doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

They admit that they will find it hard to hand over creative control.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have seen some scripts so we have an idea of what is going to happen. One of the ways in which it is easier to for us to let go is that this is a fictionalised version,\u201d says McCormick. \u201cBut there\u2019s a lot of versions of Bad Bridgets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

The story of emigration wasn\u2019t about what great men did in America and all those men who became presidents. There is this whole story that nobody was really talking about<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Prof Elaine Farrell<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Murder, theft and prostitution are explored in some of the lives of the 200 women featured in the book; women, that \u201chistory chose to forget\u201d, say the authors. Poverty and alcoholism were often factors in the crimes. By 1862, Irish women made up 86 per cent of New York\u2019s prison population.<\/p>\n

There were others who chose to be career criminals, and Farrell points to their \u201cingenuity\u201d. She singles out Laura Wilson, the \u201cchameleonic burglar\u201d who broke into people\u2019s houses and left dressed in their clothes.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s a big favourite of ours with her \u2018signature scent of rum and cigarette smoke\u2019,\u201d she says, laughing.<\/p>\n

But so too is Marian Canning, who McCormick \u201cshoehorns into every lecture they deliver\u201d; the 19-year-old sex worker from Leitrim was sentenced to seven years in a New York prison after being falsely accused of stealing $3 from Richard Bronkbank for her services in 1891.<\/p>\n

Canning\u2019s father sent a bank draft pledging she would never enter the US again.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Bad Bridgets: The murderers, thieves and prostitutes among Irish emigrant womenOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cI still remember the moment finding her pardon record and it had letters in it from her father. He wrote to the governor of New York and judge about trying to get her released. I\u2019d never seen letters like that before, it felt like this is what a parent would write,\u201d says McCormick. \u201cAnd I love a happy ending.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201creal thrill\u201d for the historians is bringing the lives of these women to a bigger audience through film. They feel that a stigma remains about women\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not \u2018big boy\u2019 history,\u201d says Farrell. \u201cBut these are really important stories. The story of emigration wasn\u2019t about what great men did in America and all those men who became presidents. There is this whole story that nobody was really talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCormick agrees. She points to the map behind her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am at home with an old map of New York; from my eye line I can always see and picture the Bad Bridgets. So it\u2019s wonderful that someone has been inspired by what you\u2019ve found in the archives and can take it to a completely different realm \u2013 and hopefully bring it to lots of people who can enjoy it and learn something about Irish women\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an attic office on Belfast\u2019s University Square, Prof Elaine Farrell\u2019s phone beeps with messages about her book…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[663,18,117,2215,19,17,11797,968,29624,91301],"class_list":{"0":"post-166542","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-belfast","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-for-you","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-margot-robbie","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-queens-university","17":"tag-rich-peppiatt"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115504337599734567","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}