The Limerick-born actor Richard Harris, who starred in the Oscar-winning film Gladiator, spent this week in his home city of Limerick, and in Kilkee, Co Clare, making a documentary for the CBS programme, 60 Minutes.
Harris, who was staying in Dromoland Castle, has turned 70 and was recalling his early life for the CBS television crew, which is producing a 20-minute film to be screened in the autumn to more than 50 million people.
"It is a retrospective on someone's life, trying to get a sense of the person and artist," Mr Andrew Tkach, one of the film crew, said. "He is obviously very deep-rooted in Ireland, so it is important we come here and see it for ourselves."
In Kilkee, Harris took some time out from filming at old haunts on the beach and cliffs to present a new perpetual trophy for the game of squash racquets, which is distinctive to the west Clare seaside resort. "The winners, senior and junior, are in fact world champions," Mr Tom Byrne, a native of Kilkee, said.
The game is played by mixed pairs on the beach against a wall, built in a post-Famine relief scheme, which forms the base of the squash alleys.
Played mostly by visiting Limerick people and natives of Kilkee, it uses a racket and a tennis ball stripped of its fur. Uniquely, Harris is a four-times consecutive winner of the original Tivoli Cup, as it is known, claiming the titles between 1948 and 1951. The cup is now covered with the names of the "world champions" between 1935 and 1993, the last year the tournament was held.
"I love this place," Harris said at Kilkee Library on Thursday when he donated the new Tivoli Cup to the competition. "It is in my heart and in my soul. Every time I do a movie, I say it is my last movie and I am coming back and retiring in this place. I love this place, I worship this place," he said.
Mr Manuel di Lucia, who organised the event, said he hoped to revive the competition this summer. "It was an important aspect of tourism in Kilkee. It was one of the biggest attractions in the last two weeks of July for 65 years," he said.
Meanwhile, in Scott's Bar on Thursday evening, Harris revealed that a loosely strung racquet was essential. "A highly strung racquet would not control the ball. I knew where the holes in the wall were and where the bounce was. Nobody could beat me.
"It was the one thing I looked forward to every year, playing for the Tivoli Cup."