Star Wars filming to begin on Skellig Michael in Kerry
Production crews begin work at Skellig Michael island in County Kerry in preparation for the filming of Star Wars: Episode VII.
Production crews begin work on the picturesque island of Skellig Michael in preparation for the filming of Star Wars: Episode VII. A two-mile exclusion zone has been declared around the island, patrolled by a naval vessel.
Skellig Michael is the larger of two islands in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of the Iveragh peninsula.
The new film will feature the stars of the original Star Wars trilogy, including Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker. Here his son Nathan waits to be transported across to the island.
A Christian monastery was established on the island at some point between the 6th and 8th Centuries and was continuously occupied until the late 12th Century.
Filming has already taken place at Pinewood Studios in London and in Abu Dhabi. Another member of the Hamill family, Mark's daughter Chelsea, visited Skellig Michael on Monday.
The remains of the monastery and most of the island were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996
Griffin Hamill joined his brother and sister on set on Tuesday. It is the first time that the Star Wars franchise has landed in the Republic of Ireland.
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