Seamus Gallagher is a major supporting character in Netflix’s Bodkin. David Wilmot plays the character in the show.
Seamus Gallagher is a frequent patron of the local bar where the protagonist trio in Bodkin first visits to hopefully find some information after their arrival in the town.
Seamus the smuggler
Gilbert eventually finds out from him that he’s not originally from Bodkin but came to the town some time ago. As new information about Seamus is dug upon, the team realizes he’s not what he claims to be.
Seamus’s real name is Jack McFadden, also known by his alias, “the Badger.” He is a violent smuggler and Dove knew him because he was infamous for smuggling across the border before the Good Friday Agreement.
He smuggled petrol, arms, drugs… anything that needed moving. There were a lot of ugly rumors about him, like kneecapping and murder. 20 years earlier, he came to Bodkin and has been living under a fake identity ever since.
Though he doesn’t commit as much violence as he used to, he’s still very much capable of it. He has also not stopped smuggling, having now pivoted to the smuggling of eels. The Interpol has been hot on his trail and come very close to apprehending him.
A greedy move
Seamus was raised on a farm up north. Bandit country. During that time, there was a lot of risk but a high reward in the world of crime.
He and his brother Malachy used to dug tunnels under the cow shed, to cross the border. They’d move anything they could sell; diesel, drugs, guns, even toilet roll.
The infamous and even more brutal family of McArdles was the same. They had their patch. Seamus had his.
One day he learned that McArdles had got their hands on a big shipment of Semtex, worth a fortune.
Seamus got Jon-Joe, Desy, and Oisín McArdle, by leaking information, and all of them got nabbed, before being sent down to Long Kesh.
Seamus and Malachy robbed them blind in their absence. He stole their explosives and expanded his empire. Malachy set up shop in Bodkin, using Darragh’s land.
He’d get shipments in by boat. Seamus would smuggle them up into the north. They had a great thing going. That was until the Good Friday Agreement.
The cost of greed
Under that, a lot of lads got released from prison, including the McArdles. Sometime later, Seamus gets a visit by Oisín, who waves a gun at Seamus, threatening him.
Seamus killed him. Now the McArdles would’ve never forgave him. So he phoned Malachy, warning him to grab Fiona and run.
He then burned the farm down and drove as fast as he could to Bodkin. But it was already too late, and they were gone. They disappeared on the night of the Samhain festival.
For the longest time, he thought they might be alive still, having survived and living together somewhere.
Finding Fiona & son Sean
However, decades later, after a nosy trio of podcasters arrive in town, snooping and poking around the mystery of disappearances, they end up finding Malachy’s body buried in the boot of a car dumped in a bog.
Later, Seamus learns that Fiona died while giving birth to his child, who turns out to be Sean, the same young man who gives him so much grief at work because of his poor and hasty decisions, and less-than-wise choices.
By the time he learns of this fact, the McArdles close in on him, having returned to the town to finally have their revenge. Seamus faces them and others while making a bombastic exit out of Bodkin.