Detour #249: In Hot Pursuit of Hollywood Heroes on the Wicklow Film Trails, Ireland
An Irish road trip with top Hollywood film locations and some fighty bits from Braveheart? Ben Barry finds out more…
Hollywood, County Wicklow is clearly not the Hollywood synonymous with movie making, but the Republic of Ireland’s breath-taking scenery – not to mention generous tax incentives – have attracted the international film industry to shoot here. Even Mel Gibson has fallen for (literally) the Irish Hollywood.
Thanks to the Wicklow Film Trails, road-tripping film fans can join the dots between locations, signposts and all. It’s inspired Detour’s own visit in a Mitsubishi Evo IX, a fast saloon with all-wheel drive that’s perfect for roads as challenging as the local weather.
We take the overnight ferry from Liverpool to Dublin and, thanks to our 5.30am arrival, clear the capital’s outskirts before rush-hour bites. From there it’s an easy 37 miles south down the N91 main route to Hollywood and the start of our Irish film location adventure. The population of this small village barely scrapes into three figures, but we spy a scale replica of the Hollywood sign on a nearby hillside (shades of Father Ted humour with the sheep grazing nearby), and we discover the village has actually appeared on screen, even if the actual films are unlikely to ring bells. This is my Father? Dancing at Lughnasa? Us neither, though both seem well-rated.
From Hollywood we point the Mitsubishi east down the R756, aka the Wicklow Gap Road, one of only two routes crossing the Wicklow Mountains. Initially a rather generic tapestry of fields, hedges and telegraph poles, our patience is repaid as the landscape switches first to wilder evergreens and then it sweeps out into the spectacular wide-open moorland around Brockagh, giving the powerful 2.0-litre turbo engine space to run free.
This landscape featured in Reign of Fire – a post-apocalyptic sci-fi flop, albeit one with stunning visuals and Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale. There’s a lovely flow to this road too, with no junctions, driveways and little else to obstruct a driver’s vision.
We stop for lunch at Glendalough, taking the chance to walk the Spinc Trail, which climbs up steeply by the Poulanass Waterfall then onto a boardwalk that stretches out over the peaty peaks above. It’s hard work to get to the 500m summit, but beautiful views out over Glendalough Valley and the Wicklow Uplands are reward enough. A few miles up the road we head north at Laragh on the R115, a narrow road initially hemmed by the treeline before breaking free and wending spectacularly uphill at Glenmacnass Waterfall. Still narrow, it’s now well-sighted enough to get a car into a quick rhythm and it’s a fabulous driving route.
Before long we’re back into starkly beautiful expanses of heath- and peatland at Sally Gap, famous locally as a crossroads in the Wicklow Mountains. Turn right and you can soon take a snap from the bridge featured in PS I Love You, starring Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler. Go straight and you’re on The Old Military Road, built by the British Army following the Irish Rebellion of 1798.
We take a left, making for Kippure Holiday Village. Given the Irish struggle against the English, it seems appropriate that parts of Braveheart were filmed here, notably the stockade attack. Irish army reservists were enlisted as ‘Scottish’ extras alongside Mel Gibson’s William Wallace, and even local horses got their 15 minutes.
From there we’re up to Lacken – location for Widow’s Peak, a comedy/mystery starring Mia Farrow and Natasha Richardson – then a quick hop over River Liffey at the Blessington Lakes before we head south and back to Hollywood.
It might all be a long way from the home of movie making, but the Wicklow Film Trail more than makes a case for itself as a very worthwhile Detour.
Words Ben Barry Twitter/X | Instagram
Photography Charlie Magee Instagram