Gruesome for Gleeson

A TOP movie star's cousin was one of the contestants who entered Haunted House, Ireland's hair-raising reality show earlier this year.

Model and student Sinead Gleeson, 20, from Thurles, Co Tipperary, was among 27 contestants picked from 50,000 original applications.

Sinead an arts student at University College Dublin, is cousin of Brendan Gleeson, star of such movies as Mission Impossible, Lake Placid and Michael Collins.

The show will be transmitted on TV3 next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights.

The Thurles girl who spent last summer modelling in New York has starred in musicals with the Presentation Secondary School in Thurles.

She recalls her famous cousin Brendan was a regular visitor to her grandmother and other relatives in Thurles.

"Brendan was great on the fiddle. He always loved music," she said. Contestants had to spend three days and three nights in the Haunted House and they could leave if they broke a rule by not completing a task or if they were driven out in sheer terror.

A spokesman for the programme said: "The public can vote by phone for the 12 remaining finalists after the third show on May 23 from 11pm through Eirecom Response and calls cost 58cent.

"The winner will get a Suzuki Grand Vitara and EUR20,000.

"Viewers are also in with a chance to be a winner in the Haunted House with one in every five callers being entered into a draw for EUR5,000.

"Haunted House is a brilliant example of what people will put themselves through for fame and fortune."

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