Tara Studios, based at Borleagh Manor estate in County Wexford, is now open for shooting. Expansion of the facility begins next year. This includes a total of 150,000 square feet of studio space, plus office and workshop spaces.
Former chief executive of Pinewood Studios Group, Ivan Dunleavy, is the co-founder of Tara Studios, a new studio facility based at the 154-acre Borleagh Manor estate in County Wexford. The facility is now open for shooting, with production spaces of 27,000 square-feet available.
Expansion plans for the facility are set for early next year, which will see the construction of 150,000 square feet of studio space across seven stages, with the largest stage coming in at 30,000 square-feet. There will be a further 90,000 square-feet of workshop and office space. Construction is expected to be completed in July 2025.
Joining Dunleavy in this venture is film financier John Gleeson, head of the Dublin office of chartered accountants firm Saffery. Upon completion of construction, Tara Studios will surpass Troy Studios as Ireland’s largest facility for film and TV production.
Dunleavy and Gleeson intend to provide space for the kinds of large productions that have been filmed on-location in Ireland in recent years, but have not had access to sufficiently-sized studio facilities, as well as the work of local productions.
“The most recent projection is that around one million square feet of stage space is needed, and currently there’s about a quarter of a million,” stated Dunleavy.
The co-founders of Tara Studios took two years to choose the location on the facility, based on proximity to Dublin (a 60 - 90 minute drive via the M11), airports, and hotels for crews. Borleagh Manor went on sale in 2020. The estate includes a historic manor house, formal gardens, courtyards and stables, woodlands, streams and a lake.
The regional location of Tara Studios will mean productions at the facility will be eligible for an added 5 per cent regional tax benefit boost, on top of the current Section 481 tax break worth 32 per cent.
Dunleavy has said that construction of Tara Studios will cost “tens of millions of dollars”.
