From Busáras to the Dingle Peninsula: The filming locations of 500 Miles
500 Miles
Two brothers. One estranged grandfather. Five hundred miles of Irish road between them and the answer to a question they don't yet know how to ask. "We were shooting in very real world locations," director Morgan Matthews told Televisual. "In Busáras, we were shooting on the trains, we were shooting on the ferry from Holyhead to Dublin and then we're shooting across Ireland and then in Dingle as well. Got a fantastic experience across Ireland."
500 Miles – directed by BAFTA-winner Morgan Matthews (X+Y, Williams), adapted by Malcolm Campbell from Mark Lowery's novel Charlie and Me – premiered at the Dublin International Film Festival in February 2026.
The film follows 16-year-old Finn and his younger brother Charlie, who run away from trouble at home in England to reach their estranged grandfather on Ireland's wild west coast. Bill Nighy plays the grandfather. Roman Griffin Davis plays Finn. Dexter Sol Ansell plays Charlie. Maisie Williams, Clare Dunne and Michael Socha complete the cast.
Principal photography for the Origin Pictures and Port Pictures production began in late 2024, filming across Dublin, Wicklow and Kerry.
The journey begins in Dublin at the city's central bus station on Store Street, a 1953 modernist landmark designed by Michael Scott – served as a primary filming location, confirmed by Matthews himself.
The production also filmed on Dublin's trains and on the ferry from Holyhead to Dublin.
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County Wicklow – immediately south of Dublin, its moorland, granite mountains and wooded valleys forming the Wicklow Mountains National Park – provided the transitional terrain of the journey's opening stages.
The journey's emotional destination is the Dingle Peninsula – the narrow finger of land jutting into the Atlantic in County Kerry, its mountain spine dropping on both sides to some of the most dramatic coastline in Europe. Matthews confirmed Dingle as a filming location.
The wider Kerry coastline and Ireland's rugged west coast completed the film's journey.
500 Miles is in cinemas now.
SOURCE
Televisual // Screen Daily // Wikipedia // IMDb // Dublin International Film Festival
CREDITS
© Origin Pictures, Minnow Films
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