Star Wars director felt “very, very lucky” to film in Ireland

Speaking in Tourism Ireland’s third Star Wars promo Mark Hamill said “It’s like a fairy-tale world … you just can’t believe your eyes”

Tourism Ireland today launched phase three of its latest Star Wars campaign ‘trilogy’, targeting fans of the science fiction franchise around the world. It involves a specially-commissioned ‘behind-the-scenes’ film, created during filming here of Star Wars: The Last Jedi in 2015 and 2016.

Tourism Ireland commissioned Lucasfilm – the company which produced Star Wars: The Last Jedi – to create the short film, in which Star Wars director Rian Johnson and actors Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) and Daisy Ridley (Rey) praise this special location they chose for filming.

In the behind-the-scenes film, Mark Hamill praises Ireland’s beauty: “It’s like a fairy-tale world … you just can’t believe your eyes”.

Describing Ireland, director Rian Johnson said: “It’s a gorgeous place. I feel very, very lucky to be able to get it on film”.

Check out the Tourism Ireland behind-the-scenes film here:

“We are extremely grateful to Lucasfilm and the Star Wars team for their tremendous generosity in agreeing to make this wonderful behind-the-scenes film, to help us promote the Wild Atlantic Way and Ireland,” said Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland. “Since its release, Star Wars: The Last Jedi has been breaking box office records everywhere and Tourism Ireland is capitalizing on this positive exposure, highlighting the Star Wars connection with Ireland and bringing the magnificent scenery of the Wild Atlantic Way to the attention of millions of people everywhere.”

Tourism Ireland’s Star Wars campaign is rolling out in 15 markets – Britain, the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Nordic region, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, India and the GCC. Tourism Ireland will share the behind-the-scenes film with its 20,000 international media contacts; and via social media, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Filming on Skellig Michael for Star Wars: The Last Jedi took place over two days in 2015, before moving to the mainland. To continue filming on location here, the crew returned in 2016 and built replicas of Skellig Michael’s sixth-century monastic ‘beehive’ huts on the mainland. The location scouts were so taken with Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way that locations in counties Cork, Kerry, Clare and Donegal were handpicked to represent the planet Ahch-to in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Phase one of Tourism Ireland’s Star Wars campaign ‘trilogy’ was unveiled in early December, in advance the film’s global release. It involved a fun publicity stunt – the first ever tourism campaign in space!

Phase two of the campaign was a fun, irreverent promotional film about holidays along the Wild Atlantic Way, featuring Mark Hamill – aka Luke Skywalker.