Filming

Over the past 20 years Ireland has been the setting of several successful international productions, including Braveheart, Saving Private Ryan, Michael Collins, Harry Potter, PS I Love You, Becoming Jane, and Leap Year. From period dramas to small-town coming of age stories, Skerries provides film crews a stunning setting for television and film. With historic buildings from various periods and styles and a seaside-based location with nearby mountain ranges and beautiful countryside, the town is an idyllic filming location. You will find an array of sites to film, from an 18th century country home to a 16th century windmill, or a 19th century gothic church. Skerries also has top-notch accommodation and catering options, all within an easily accessible city centre.

From documentaries and short films to major motion pictures and television dramas, the streets of Skerries have grown accustomed to movie lights, cameras, and the sounds of “action!” and “quiet please”. In Some Mother’s Son, Helen Mirren strolled along Strand Street when the town portrayed a Northern Irish protestant town. Christopher Lee filmed his Fu Manchu films in Skerries in the 1960s, and the 1960s-set BBC crime miniseries Inspector George Gently saw the Skerries Bookshop transformed into a newsagent in East Anglia. Irish playwright Conor McPherson made his directorial debut here with nostalgic drama Saltwater, while Latvian director Ivar Zviedris and Irish filmmaker Brendan Culleton Skerries set their documentary Bégums (Tide), a film about immigrant periwinkle pickers, in Skerries. More recently, local writer and director Michael Creagh filmed his short-film The Crush in Skerries. The film is a schoolboy love story with a dramatic twist when an infatuated pupil gives a toy ring to the teacher he has fallen in love with, Miss Purdy.  The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film in 2011, and won the Best Irish Short at the Folye Film Festival.

The Irish Film Board (www.irishfilmboard.ie) maintains a list of local film crews to help provide productions with services from accommodation to editing and camera operation. Whether filming a short film or an epic motion picture, you are sure to find a depth of skills in Ireland to assist with creating and producing your film or television programme. Ireland also has a rich pool of talented actors, and is the home of Golden Globe Award winners Colin Farrell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Gabriel Byrne, and Emmy Award winners Brendan Gleeson, Dearbhla Walsh and Joan Bergin.

With a range of financial incentives, Ireland is also an excellent filming partner for international productions. In 2008, the Irish government introduced Section 481 for film and television productions to strengthen Irish tax incentives. The country offers competitive tax incentives that allow productions to derive a benefit of up to 28% of their Irish budget. The incentive is available to productions from their first day of principal photography, and a ceiling on qualifying expenditures of all European Union personnel and purchased of goods and services in Ireland is set at a generous €50 million.

Before filming in Skerries, check with the Skerries local authority and share your plans for filming in the community. Generally there is no fee for filming in public spaces, although private locations may charge a fee. The local authority can also assist you in finding the perfect filming location to meet your needs, or location scouts can used a free filming location finder maintained by the Irish Film Board on their website. To film in public areas in Skerries and the Skerries Harbour, contact the Irish Film Board Location Services. For private locations, including hotels, restaurants and bars, or for attractions such as the Skerries Mills, Ardgillan Castle or one of the town’s historic churches, contact the property directly.