When actress Mandy McElhinney read the part of Eileen for an Australian version of hit TV comedy Ghosts, she felt immediately that it was written for her.
Which seems an odd response to playing a mother of 13 who has left Ireland after the potato famine and set up as a publican in Australia, until McElhinney explains that her late father was from the Emerald Isle and she saw the part as a way to connect to her cultural roots.
