Cinematic Ireland

Cair Paravel or as it’s known in the real world, Dunluce Castle.

Fantasy author CS Lewis was born and raised near Belfast and spent much of his childhood exploring the wilds of Counties Down and Antrim. When writing the Chronicles of Narnia, the few parts of the book series set in the real world are clearly influenced by Oxford (and England in general) where he was living at the time of writing his famous fantasy series, but the fantastical worlds of Narnia where most of the book series takes place were vastly influenced by the romantic landscapes of counties Antrim and Down.

The dramatic ruins of Dunluce Castle along the Causeway coast are said to have inspired his depiction of the royal castle in the books, Cair Paravel. While many visitors comment on the feeling of magic in the air of the remote yet beautiful Mourne Mountains south of Belfast, Lewis captured this feeling of magic and used it to create the various realms of the fantastical Narnia, where the four Pevensie children and friends have their adventures. 

In fact, in his essay On Stories, Lewis is quoted, “I have seen landscapes…notably in the Mourne Mountains and southwards which under a particular light made me feel that at any moment a giant might raise his head over the next ridge,” later adding, “one almost expects to see a march of dwarfs dashing past. How I long to break into a world where such things were true”!

The lunar-like landscapes of the Burren National Park feel like a place straight out of Middle Earth. 

Further south, Ireland’s west coast is full of diverse and wild landscapes. One such place is County Clare’s the Burren National Park, renowned for its lunar-esque exposed limestone landscape. Despite being a stone’s throw from the famous Cliffs of Moher, far fewer visitors venture into this wild and unusual landscape.

One person who did visit this sparsely-populated land is the original fantasy giant, J.R.R. Tolkien. A contemporary, acquaintance and even Oxford colleague of CS Lewis, Tolkien is best known for writing The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, later published in the early 50s.

While Tolkien was writing the Lord of the Rings, he visited Ireland – in particular, he travelled to the Burren region of western Ireland. Its unusal exposed limestone landscape is like something one might expect to find on the moon…on Middle Earth, perhaps? The Lord of the Rings saga features some strange and memorable landscapes, each one distinct from the others (the quaint Shire, the windswept fields of Rohan, the fiery Mt Doom, the creepy Fangorn Forest, the grand Gondor, the dark Mines of Moria and so many others). It’s easy to imagine the lunar-esque panoramas of the Burren appearing amongst these other fantastic Middle Earth landscapes.

There’s even a cave in the Burren (and another one in Fermanagh) called Pol na Gollum – is this where the iconic Lord of the Rings character of Gollum came from? Though Tolkien never came out and said that the Burren inspired his descriptions of Middle Earth, it’s not hard to see how this unique karst landscape may have impacted his writings while creating The Lord of the Rings.

The Skelligs are iconic backdrops in the Star Wars films as a secret Jedi hideout.

Science fiction giants have also been inspired by Ireland’s remote corners. Long-standing sci-fi classic Star Wars have chosen to use some of the world’s most exotic locations as stand-ins for alien planets – and Ireland is no exception!

The 2015 and 2017 Star Wars films (The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, respectively) chose to use the iconic rock pinnacle islands, Skellig Michael and the Little Skellig, as Luke Skywalker’s secret hideout. Today a recognised UNESCO site, the Skelligs are two small rocky islands over 11 km off the coast of Kerry. Once home to monks looking to hide away from the world, the Star Wars films use the islands in much the same way, except they become a hiding place for Jedi!

The small size, unpredictable weather and protected status of the Skellig Islands led Star Wars location scouts to search elsewhere for a place to film the up-close scenes of the Jedi hideout. What they found was the similarly rugged headland (and also Ireland’s northernmost point), Malin Head in Co Donegal – rugged, isolated, and rocky, and perfect to serve as an extension to Skellig Michael. 

Another challenge-turned-opportunity befitting Star Wars filmmakers were the island’s puffins which kept wandering into the scenes! Since they were protected, filmmakers weren’t allowed to move them, so instead, they replaced them with an adorable alien of their own creation – the Porgs.

Dracula is the source of all modern vampire stories. Despite setting his famous vampire story in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania (modern-day Romania), Irish author Bram Stoker never once stepped foot there.

Instead, most of his Dracula inspirations are said to have come from England (the eerie Highgate Cemetery stands out), and Ireland. Stoker was born during the terrible Great Famine, an event that would have dramatically shaped his childhood and world views. His childhood would have been full of spooky tales that told of creatures returning from the grave, feasting on human blood, and terrorising innocent villagers such as one that told of an evil dwarf who came back to life until finally killed with a stake to the heart – sound familiar, Dracula?

Stories of people buried accidentally – or even forcibly – alive during the horrible Famine years would have resonated with him, particularly tales told him by his mother, who was from the remote Sligo region on the West Coast. For those wealthy enough, they could install a bell and pulley system – just in case they woke up buried alive but for the vast majority of people, this was simply a fear one had to live with.

The west coast of Ireland is still full of eerie crumbling sites that make for a perfect horror novel backdrop – crumbling abbeys and manors, abandoned Famine-era villages, famine roads and walls, hidden Neolithic-era tombs and more.