Fair City star Dave Duffy has swapped Fair City's Carrigstown for the Louth town of Reaghstown, where his latest film is set.
Duffy stars in Wild Goose Lodge, a new Irish film released nationwide on Friday, and tells the true story of a massacre that took place in 1816 at Wild Goose Lodge in Ardee, county Louth.
A real community effort, the film has neary seven years to make, and opens a full 200 years to the day since the original incident happened at Wild Goose Lodge.
"I was attracted to the film because it was such a great story," says Duffy. "Joe McKeever, the cameraman for Wild Goose Lodge, was also working on another movie with me. He gave me an outline of the story and told me about the work that the people of Reaghstown were doing to make the movie.
"He introduced me to one of the producers, William Martin who explained what they were doing. I got the script in the mail the next day and I just loved it. I loved the whole tragic story.
"The Wild Goose Lodge movie is set in 1816 and is an actual true story. The time was such a difficult one: the occupation of Ireland, attempts by the locals to fight back against the crown and the bitter battles between neighbours.
"My character Fr McCann is the ageing priest who is caught in the middle. He is central to the whole story and you see within the movie that he is searching for his own sense of purpose in this dreadful tale. The script is so beautifully written and the story is told so sensitively - I couldn’t help but be drawn to be part of this production."
Duffy was keen to make the distinction between the approach to filming Wild Goose Lodge was and what he'd be more accustomed to on the set of Fair City, RTÉ One's hugely popular soap opera.
And the differences aren't just as obvious as you might think. For example, shooting schedules on a tightly-budgeted film compared to a TV show that goes out four times a week offer quite a contrast.
"The time frame was the huge difference," says Duffy. "In Fair City we might film 15 scenes in a day. On the movie we start a scene in January and finish it in March. I was working on the movie every weekend over a long period of time, all in my spare time, just like all of the locals who were involved in the movie.
“The other main difference is that Fair City is a huge production with a dedicated hair and make-up, wardrobe and props department who look after everything. On the film set, everything had to be made or sourced by the people involved in the film.
"I was just blown away by the resourcefulness, dedication and effort that was invested into the movie by the entire local community. The results of their efforts is a movie that looks and feels incredibly authentic and of its time."
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