Puffins, Porgs, Labour, and Lightsabers: Production and Consumption of Cultural Space on the Skellig Coast of Ireland

A call comes over the radio of a fishing boat off the southwestern coast of Ireland. It’s a beautiful day along the Wild Atlantic Way but the mood surrounding the waters has been tense lately. There’s something big happening at Skellig Michael; something unprecedented. Whatever it is, it is a big enough deal to get the Irish Coast Guard involved with patrolling the waters. The fisherman answers the radio call and hears the voice of a Coast Guard official himself. “We’re going to need you to turn around and stay out of the area,” the voice over the radio commands. “How far out from the Skellig are we?” questions the fisherman. The Coast Guard answers, “seven miles out.” Wasting no time, the fisherman quickly responds with a dismissive “fuck off” before continuing on his course. This story is one of many shared between boating captains and visiting tourists alongside the County Kerry coast as poncho-clad travellers from around the world sit across bolted down benches as they travel out to see an island that once marked the westernmost reach of European civilisation. That island is Skellig Michael, a jagged and pyramidal crag emerging from the Atlantic alongside its smaller sister island, Skellig Bheag. What was the obstruction blocking the fishermen from completing their day’s work? It was the production of the 2015 film Star Wars: The Force Awakens directed by JJ Abrams and produced by The Walt Disney Company’s Lucasfilm Ltd. studio. So how is it that a science fiction fantasy film that would go on to earn over $2 billion at the international box office came to collide with the daily work of a fishing vessel off the coast of southwest Ireland ( BoxOfficeMojo.com 2023)?