A staggering €785,000 was injected into the local economy of Westport over the last year according to Mayo liaison to the Irish Film Board and local election candidate Councillor Keith Martin.
In 2005, Cllr Martin established Westport Town Council’s film budget of €5,000 making Westport the only town council in Ireland to promote itself as a film friendly location. The vast majority of the local spend is from the German film Heart’s Desire which was filmed in and around Westport last year and only last week the Slovenian production Circus Fantasticus finished filming on Silver Stand and they estimate their local spend to have been about €35,000.
According to Cllr Martin: “This kind of spend is fantastic for the local economy and is one of the reasons why we must continue to market Westport and Mayo as a venue for filmmaking. The other spin-off benefit is that there is a tourism benefit to being the location for filming. One only has to look at Quiet Man which is still drawing tourists to Mayo from all over the world more than 50 years after it was made.”
To date Cllr Martin has assisted 12 productions since 2004 and he estimates the value of these productions, which include no less than three feature films, to run into millions of euro. “That is why when I am elected to Mayo County Council that I will establish a full time film office to promote Westport and Mayo as a venue for film making. Mayo has massive untapped filming potential and I will exploit that to create jobs and attract investment.”
