Game of Thrones saved my bacon says pig farmer whose life was transformed when TV show turned his animals into stars
For the herds of ‘medieval’ pigs seen on the drama’s twin continents of Westeros and Essos are Kenny’s. So, too, are the sheep, Joey the donkey, Suzie the goat, Yana the red deer and the plump red hens that scratch around in village scenes.
In the new series, his two Irish wolfhound-deerhound crosses Murphy and Hennessy make their screen debut. And much of the ancient farm equipment – the rusty chains, horse collars, anvils, mangers and troughs – that dress the sets in Northern Ireland has been salvaged from teetering piles of scrap in Kenny’s junk-filled barns near Tandragee in Co Armagh where it had been gathering dust for decades.