Where are our Irish Stars?


Ireland suffered greatly from a brain drain in the 1980s, we lost our brightest and best to foreign lands, where their intelligence, their talent or their vision could be better accomodated.
I don not think it is unreasonable to presume that this drain on Irish society has continued when we look at Irish actors and actresses. How many of our talented stars still call the Emerald Isle their home?
For example, Liam Neeson, one of Ireland's biggest stars, lives in New York. Colin Farrell, lives in Los Angeles. Cillian Murphy, lives in London. Jonathan Rhys Meyers spends most of his time in his London or Los Angeles abodes. Gabriel Byrne lives in New York, the list goes on and on.
What is so unattractive about Ireland for our native stars? It is clear that most Irish stars do not personally detest Ireland, for example Cillian Murphy has noted that he was delighted to work on The Wind That Shakes the Barley as it gave him a chance to film close to home and to use his natural accent in a film. Similarily, Pierce Brosnan, an Irish star who became an American citizen in 2004 has noted "my Irishness is in everything I do. It's the spirit of who I am, as a man, an actor, a father. It's where I come from."
The more obvious reason for these stars emmigration is that they must simply go to where there is most work and in these cases, most work for Irish actors is to be found in either England or America. If anything, this shows Ireland's reliance on these two countries when it comes to film production.
Hopefully, in a few years, the Irish film market would have grown suficiently as to allow Irish actors to reside in Ireland. I am skeptical, however, that this will ever be the case.

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