It's not every day that you wake up to find security men guarding your house. However, if your daughter is about to be unveiled as a key character in the next Harry Potter film, you might need some protection from the media frenzy.
Evanna Lynch (14), from Termonfeckin, Co Louth, was introduced to the world yesterday as the actress who will play Luna Lovegood in the forthcoming Harry Potter & The Order of The Phoenix film.
The novice actress beat 15,000 other hopefuls in an open casting call to take the role in the wizards' tale by JK Rowling. Evanna will begin filming after the mid-term school break and will continue, on and off, until October.
The second-year student attends drama classes at the Drogheda College of Performing Arts (Little Duke Theatre) and is a Harry Potter fanatic. She already has a cat called Luna and she owns a signed copy of The Order of The Phoenix. She was allowed out of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital for an hour to collect the book when it was released in 2003.
Despite yesterday's excitement, Evanna still turned up for school at Our Lady's College, Drogheda, where her father Donal is deputy principal.
Film producers Warner Brothers had stationed security staff outside the school to protect Evanna from the media. Back in Termonfeckin, her older sister Emily was answering the phone. "We're all thrilled," she said. "But we're not supposed to say anything. It's great though."
Earlier, Donal Lynch told RTÉ's Today with Pat Kenny programme that Evanna had always dreamed of being in a Harry Potter film. "She is a huge Harry Potter fan from when she was eight years of age," he said. Her parents decided to let her go forward to the auditions because it meant so much to her. "Beforehand, Marguerite [her mother] said to her 'You haven't a snowball's chance in hell', and Evanna said 'If I don't do it, I'll never know'."
Evanna got through the auditions and was then called to a screen test, her father said. "She met Daniel Radcliffe and the rest of the cast, all the big names. I thought she was brilliant, I thought she was great. She did four scenes and then she was asked to improvise."
Evanna's character is a Ravenclaw student who becomes an important ally of Harry, Ron and Hermione. Her parents have ensured that she does not miss out on school when she becomes immersed in the world of flying broomsticks later this month. "She will have a tutor there. She's in class, life goes on," her father said.
The Order of The Phoenix is the fifth film adaptation of the Harry Potter series. It will be directed by award-winning British film-maker David Yates (The Girl in the Café, Sex Traffic, State of Play) and will be released next year.
Who is Luna Lovegood?
JK Rowling has described Luna Lovegood as a sort of "anti-Hermione". While Hermione relies on facts and logic, Luna believes things on faith alone. A Ravenclaw student, she is first introduced on the Hogwarts Express when she ends up sharing a compartment with Harry Potter and his friends.
Luna has a dotty or dreamy appearance, with straggly waist-length dirty blonde hair and "misty" eyes. She keeps her wand tucked behind her ear and wears butter-beer corks and radishes for jewellery. She is often teased by her classmates and is called Loony Lovegood behind her back.
Her father is editor of the wizards' magazine The Quibbler and her mother died after one of her spells went badly wrong. She becomes an important ally of Harry, Ron and Hermione in The Order of The Phoenix. While she is a relatively new character in the Harry Potter series, a Google search for Luna Lovegood throws up more than 300,000 entries.