"Star Wars: The Last Jedi" (2017), "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" (2015) & "The Lobster" (2015) are the most exciting recent films to shoot in Kerry but film productions have been coming to the county for almost a century. In 1910 the New York based O’Kalem Company made history by shooting almost 30 feature films here, the earliest fiction films to be shot in Ireland. In the 1930s a local Killarney man, Tom Cooper, himself made history by shooting “The Dawn”, the first indigenous sound production in Ireland, released in the US as “The Dawn Over Ireland”.
In the intervening years well known productions such as David Lean’s “Ryan’s Daughter” (1969), John Boorman’s “Excalibur” (1981) & Ron Howard’s “Far & Away” (1993) have all shot in Kerry. The dramatic scenery has always been a draw but the level of film production support in the county enables productions to keep coming back.
