(Hopefully this will be the first of a series on movies set or filmed in Dublin.)
Though set in Liverpool, Willy Russell’s Educating Rita about a young working class girl (Julie Waters) hoping to better herself by studying literature, was filmed in Ireland. TCD, UCD, Maynooth, Phoenix Park, Connolly Station and Ringsend all make appearances.
Various shots of Trinity College. Byrant’s (Michael Caine) office was filmed in the rooms of the College Historical Society and the University Philosophical Society respectively, and while the building was considerably refurnished, the production chose to leave portraits of Douglas Hyde and Isaac Butt and committee photographs in the former and a bust of John Pentland Mahaffy in the latter.
02:13 – Southside quays opposite Liberty Hall. 02:48 – Rathgar. 10:15 – South Lotts, Ringsend.
01:31 – Pub, Exterior. The Dame Tavern. 01:54 – Pub, Interior. The Stags Head. 06:24 – Church of the Holy Family, Aughrim Street.
04:33 – 04:44 – Belfield, UCD. 04:45 – 04:57: Maynooth College. 05:01 – Library. UCD? NUIM? TCD? 05:35 – NUIM? 07:37 – The old Connolly DART station. 08:22 – People’s Gardens, Phoenix Park. 09:35 – Crosthwaite Park, Dublin.
04:04 – Dobbin’s Wine Bistro – 15 Stephens Lane.
05:40 – “Flamingo, Parkes Hotel” Stillorgan Park Hotel, Stillorgan Road, Dublin. 08:29 – Ringsend
Click on the book for more.
Click on the book for more.
Donal
Ciarán
Sam
Come Here To Me! 
Smithfield was a very different place back in the ’90s before its redevelopment. The space seemed to be surrounded by ruins or vacant gaps between ruins and the elongated square was often quite silent after the last sacks of potatoes were sold for the day. Earlier again it served as an inspired choice for the location of Checkpoint Charlie in Martin Ritt’s adaptation of John Le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965). In as good example as any of life imitating art imitating life, Geoff Andrew praised Oswald Morris’ excellent monochrome camera-work, bringing out ‘the sheer seediness of so much of the film, with characters, buildings, and landscapes lent convincingly grubby life’ (Time Out Film Guide, London, 2006, 1250-1251).
The Blue Max, a WW1 romp with German air aces and the like was filmed in and around Dublin. There’s one nice scene where an air ace and his mot drive up St. Michael’s Hill under the arch in an open top banger…
Excellent post! Blue Max, yes please. TCD (again) as military headquarters in Berlin. Great shot of Four Courts. The Curragh as the Western front. Even Trim castle in one aerial shot.
The big lecture theatre in video 3 is the Ed Burke, downstairs in the TCD Art Block (at 5.57), and Michael Caine turns up drunk to give a class I think in the Exam Hall, off front square, where all the graduations are now held. I think somewhere in the movie there is a shot of a small wooden paneled lecture theatre, and that’s the Botany lecture theatre in TCD, apparently the oldest lecture theatre on campus (where I spent most of my undergrad years).
I hope you’ll be including that obscure gem “Quackser Fortune Has A Cousin In The Bronx”, which has never to my knowledge been released on VHS or DVD or shown on TV on this side of the pond.
It’s on the list!
Great stuff – thanks!
There are several excerpts on YouTube, featuring 22 year old Margot Kidder, eight years before she became Lois Lane in “Superman”.
Doesn’t Gene Wilder attempt one of the worst ever Irish accents by a non-Irish actor on film? My nomination for the all-time worst is Mick Jagger in “Ned Kelly”.
Also “The [First] Great Train Robbery” (1979), directed by Michael “Jurassic Park” Crichton from his own novel, with Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland. Locations in Dublin include Trinity (dread inevitability) and Heuston Station. No profound bit of cinema this, but an economically entertaining bit of fizz.
Trailer at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_QathS_8Ok
Flight Of The Doves (1971)
Quackser Fortune is available on DVD with the original cinema trailer. It’s quite a poor transfer but worth having for the shots of Dublin in the early seventies
[…] its unusual connection to Saint Patrick’s Athletic!). That’s not to mention Fu Manchu, Educating Rita or political attacks on Dublin cinemas in decades […]
Dear Come here to me.
I am an amateur photographer with an interest in the film Educating Rita, one of my all time favourites. I know every film location in the Movie. Would you like me to photograph them, label them and send them to you ?