Companion Article to YouTube Video
How to Train Your Dragon filming locations in Northern Ireland offer a starting point for exploring real places. This companion to Ireland: Fact or Folklore follows a different trail: the clues that remain when the cameras have gone, and the people whose stories make a landscape more than a backdrop.
A film can introduce a place without explaining it
A dramatic coastline makes us look. History asks us to keep looking. Who chose to live there? What work sustained them? Which parts of the view are ancient, and which were made much later? Those questions are a useful souvenir from a film that sends us searching for its locations.
There is one distinction to carry with you. Berk is a fictional setting, assembled for the screen. Director Dean DeBlois described using the Faroe island of Tindhólmur as a model for its shape, enlarged for the film. His account also credits the builders and craftspeople who gave the sets their detail. Northern Ireland’s contribution belongs to a wider process of invention, not proof that Berk is an Irish island. [1]
At Dunseverick the ground matters as much as the wall
Dunseverick’s small surviving ruin can seem an unlikely centre of a much older story. The National Trust identifies the headland as a royal site associated with Dál Riada, a Gaelic kingdom with connections across the sea to western Scotland. Its account cites Viking attacks around 871 and 924. The visible masonry belongs to the site’s later history. [2]
Look beyond the standing stonework. Banks and ditches help explain how the approach was defended. A ruined building draws the eye, but less conspicuous changes in the ground can hold another part of the story. Do not assume that every dip or ridge is an archaeological feature; use the published site plan to guide your understanding. [2]
A useful question here is what the sea offered. It could connect communities and carry supplies, while also bringing danger. Picture the practical decisions involved in living beside it: where to shelter, how to move goods, when to watch the horizon. These are prompts for imagining daily life, not recovered accounts of particular residents.
A broken pot offers a different kind of history
The cave investigation adds a quieter strand. Ruth Logue’s 2008 excavation report records archaeological deposits containing early medieval pottery and further work on a surviving wall. The cave lies west of the castle; evidence from it should not be treated as excavation evidence for every part of the headland. [3]
Pottery brings us towards tasks that rarely receive a grand title: storing, preparing and serving. It does not give us a named cook or a complete menu. Its value is more modest, and more interesting. It lets us ask questions about human activity using something people actually left behind.
If you enjoy this kind of history, try choosing one ordinary object in a museum before looking for the most spectacular display. Ask what had to happen before it could be used. Who supplied the material? Who made it? Who cleaned or repaired it? The answers may be incomplete, but the questions put people back into the picture.
Tollymore is a landscape of choices and remembrance
Tollymore’s arboretum planting began in 1752, with trees from beyond Ireland. The forest’s appearance reflects human choices as well as natural growth. [4]
The Hermitage adds a personal story. James Hamilton, second Earl of Clanbrassil, created the riverside memorial for his friend, the Marquis of Monthermer, who died in 1770. A place that looks suitable for fantasy also holds a record of friendship and loss. [4]
Try looking for an intervention that is easy to overlook: a bridge, a planted avenue, a carefully framed view. Ask why someone wanted that feature there. This is a way of reading a landscape, rather than a claim that every feature has a single explanation.
Leave room for a real creature
The official park guide names dippers, kingfishers and otters among the Shimna River’s wildlife. A sighting is never promised. Give yourself a quiet minute and let the river be more than scenery. [4]
Watch without pursuing animals or disturbing their shelter. A visit does not fail because an otter remains hidden. Hearing water and noticing a movement among leaves can be enough to change the pace of a day. The creatures that live here do not need to perform for our photographs.
The rocks tell two different heat stories
The Mournes and the Giant’s Causeway can both lead us back to molten rock, but they are not examples of the same formation process. The Mourne granite complex was emplaced in the crust around 56 million years ago without reaching the surface. [5]
At the Giant’s Causeway, basalt columns formed as lava cooled and contracted. Their repeated shapes are a geological result, even when the eye wants to see deliberate construction. [6]
That difference is useful when enjoying a dramatic view. A mountain shape alone does not reveal how its rock formed. Geology gives the landscape a history that is much older than the castle, the forest planting or the film. Look closely where it is safe, photograph what interests you and leave the rocks in place.
The storyteller is part of the folklore
The podcast visits a Lough Gur serpent tale. Its companion clue is the record behind it. The Dúchas entry names Susie Lehane as collector and Miss M. Cullinane of Clonakilty, County Cork, as informant. A story about a County Limerick lake was preserved through people connected with County Cork. [7]
That does not establish where the tale began. It does show why a folklore archive is more than a catalogue of monsters: it also records people passing stories on. This version describes Saint Patrick driving a destructive serpent into Lough Gur. It is evidence of a recorded tradition, not evidence of a creature in the lake, and no connection to the film’s origins is claimed. [7]
If your family has a place-based story, ask who told it, where they heard it and whether another relative remembers it differently. Write down the variations. A change in the telling can be interesting in its own right.
Choose a place and give it time
For a short Tollymore visit, the official guide lists the Arboretum Path at roughly 0.8 km (0.5 miles). The Rivers Trail is roughly 4.8 km (3 miles). Check the current trail map, conditions and accessibility information before choosing. Distance alone does not describe the difficulty of a walk. [4]
The north coast and Tollymore are separate outings for the approach suggested here: choose one place and leave time to notice it. This is an invitation to slow exploration, not a promise of an exact film-scene route. Tourism Northern Ireland’s production route provides further context for the film connection. [8]
Before you leave, choose one detail to remember: a defensive bank, a planted tree, a memorial or the texture of a rock. A photograph records the view. A question gives you a reason to return.
Listen to The Real Ireland Behind How to Train Your Dragon on Ireland: Fact or Folklore, then keep exploring the companion stories on Cosy in Ireland. Which small detail would make you stop and look again?
References and further reading
References checked on 7 October 2026. Numbers identify the sources supporting factual passages. Reflective questions and suggested ways of looking are the author’s interpretation.
1. Simon Thompson, The Credits, Motion Picture Association. Interview with Dean DeBlois, 10 June 2025. Berk’s visual model and production craft.
https://www.motionpictures.org/2025/06/inside-writer-director-dean-deblois-secret-formula-for-creating-his-live-action-how-to-train-your-dragon/
2. National Trust. Dunseverick Castle. Historical sequence, surviving features and site plan.
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/northern-ireland/castles-forts/dunseverick-castle
3. Ruth Logue. Excavations 2008, entry 030, Feigh alias Dunseverick Cave, Antrim. Licence AE/08/161.
https://excavations.ie/report/2008/Antrim/0019043/
4. nidirect and Forest Service. Tollymore Forest Park. Arboretum, memorial, river wildlife and walking trails.
https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/tollymore-forest-park
5. M R Cooper and T P Johnston. Mourne Mountains Complex, in The Geology of Northern Ireland Our Natural Foundation, edited by W I Mitchell, 2004. Geological Survey of Northern Ireland; hosted by BGS Earthwise.
https://earthwise.bgs.ac.uk/index.php/Mourne_Mountains_Complex,_Palaeogene_intrusive_centre,_Northern_Ireland
6. British Geological Survey. The Giant’s Causeway and Causeway Coast. Basalt and column formation.
7. National Folklore Collection, UCD, through Dúchas. Saint Patrick in Munster, Schools’ Collection, volume 0341, page 573. Collector Susie Lehane; informant Miss M. Cullinane.
https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4811664/4810390/5167124
8. Tourism Northern Ireland. The Blockbuster Productions Route. Film-location context.
https://discovernorthernireland.com/blog/post/the-blockbuster-productions-route/
