Your Home On Screen | PlotNua Discoveries

The Revelation

The house they want may be the one that looks like everywhere

Most people assume that if a film or television production wanted a house, it would want a beautiful one.

Sometimes it does. But a location manager working in Ireland describes a different method entirely for what he calls “ordinary” properties: the production team agrees on a street they like, and he posts a letter through every door on it. Then he follows up with whoever replies.

That is worth sitting with. It means the house a production wants is often not the one that stands out. It is the one that looks like everywhere. And it means the homeowner most likely to be asked is the one who has never once considered it.

Film is only part of it. The Irish demand also runs through television, advertising, content production and stills photography — and the busiest end of that market is advertising and content, not feature film.

What They See

What a production sees

The things that decide it are rarely the things a homeowner is proud of.

Both the national register and the local authority forms ask the same kinds of question, and almost none of them are about how the house looks: where can vehicles park, is there somewhere secure and weatherproof to store equipment, how do you get in, is there power, are there toilets, and when is the property not available.

A house that photographs well but has nowhere to put a van is harder to use than a plain one with a wide driveway and a side gate.

Where Ireland Stands

Where Ireland stands on this

There is real infrastructure behind this, and most of it is free to join.

Screen Ireland, the national development agency, runs a Locations Database with a public route to register a property. The form runs to seven sections, says it takes about twenty minutes, and asks for as much detail and as many images as you can give it. It wants an Eircode and a county, and it asks whether you are the owner, a tenant or an agent, and whether you have authorisation.

Some areas have a local film office. Screen Wicklow, run by Wicklow County Council, is the clearest published example. It points homeowners at the same national database, and asks anyone who wants a property added to get in touch with the office.

And there is a commercial market. SoScout, an Irish locations platform, lists roughly 150 homes. It was set up because its founders went looking for an Irish locations website and could not find one. Its main business is not feature film — it is content creators and production companies working for advertising agencies.

One honest note about the national register. Screen Ireland’s own browse categories are period properties, castles, coastline and landscape. There is no category for an ordinary house. The evidence that ordinary homes are wanted comes from the people who actually go looking for them, not from the register’s shop window.

What They Look For

What productions are actually looking for

Character, not value. The founder of the Irish locations platform puts it plainly: what clients want is variety, and a home with personality. “Personality takes precedence over valuable furniture. It is something that can’t be created.”

Resemblance. A large share of what is shot in Ireland is set somewhere else. One location manager describes the challenge of matching American architecture for shows set in the United States. Ordinary Irish housing stock is often cast as ordinary housing stock somewhere else.

And then the practical list, which is where most homes are actually ruled in or out:

room for vehicles to park, on the property or very near it
a clear way to get equipment in and out
somewhere to store things — secure, weatherproof, with usable dimensions
power
toilets
rooms that can be cleared, and rooms you would rather nobody entered
when the property is genuinely unavailable

How It Happens

How a home gets found

There are a few ways a production might find your home.

Register with Screen Ireland

Add your property to Screen Ireland’s national Locations Database.

Contact your local film office

Some areas have a local film office that can help with locations. In Wicklow, homeowners can contact Screen Wicklow about adding a property to the Screen Ireland database.

List with a location agency or platform

Irish location services and platforms also list homes for productions looking for places to shoot.

Be approached directly

Sometimes you do nothing at all. A location manager may choose a street and contact the homeowners directly.

Listing your home does not mean it will be chosen. No Irish organisation publishes how often a listed property is actually used, so nobody can tell you the odds. What listing does is make your home findable. And in the ordinary-home case, the approach that leads somewhere is often the one you never started.

PlotNua is not a location agency and does not put properties forward. The routes above are run by other organisations, and PlotNua has no arrangement with any of them.

What It Involves

What actually happens if they are interested

This is the part that gets left out, so here it is in the middle of the page rather than at the bottom.

It starts slowly, and it might go nowhere. There can be several visits from crew before anyone decides whether to use your home at all.

Everything gets agreed before it happens. Location managers go through the changes they want to make line by line. You are told which rooms will be used and what for. You can put rooms out of bounds — in one Irish case the owners named rooms that were to be left exactly as they were, and rooms that were not to be entered at all. Where it is relevant, a location manager may send you the script so you can see in advance whether anything in it would sit badly with you, such as horror or violence.

You may need to move out. One location manager says it is preferable that people leave for the duration, even if that is only a few days, and notes that households with young children may find it too disruptive to stay. Where the homeowner has to move out, bigger-budget productions factor an amount for alternative accommodation into the payment.

The scale varies enormously. A small content shoot might be a handful of people for an afternoon. On bigger productions there can be up to 200 people on set, with equipment and people all over the place.

It can run far longer than the filming. In one Irish example the production wanted the property for twelve weeks: four weeks for the art department beforehand, six weeks of filming, and one to two weeks afterwards to take out everything they had installed.

It is work, and it is a contract. As one location manager puts it: “It’s not money for nothing. You have to sign a contract agreeing to the terms and read all the emails.” Another, who does this for a living, describes home location filming as “massively invasive.”

On putting it back: the location managers quoted say everything is returned exactly as it was. That is their account of how they work. It is not a guarantee that applies to every production, and it is not a substitute for what your own contract says.

The Money

What might you be paid?

There is no Irish day rate, and anyone quoting you one is guessing. What exists is a handful of real, attributed examples — and they are very far apart, because the circumstances are very far apart.

Two hours, exterior only, typical mid-terrace house around €500 a working location manager
An eight-hour day with a smaller crew — the ordinary advertising and content shoot €700 – €1,500 an Irish locations platform
A television drama or feature, per day €500 – €1,000 attributed to Wicklow Film Office
A large house in Killiney, per week €10,000 – €20,000 a working location manager
A house on Achill used for twelve weeks, owners moved out around €30,000 in total the homeowners

Read the first row and the last row together. They describe the same market and almost nothing else in common.

Two things that shift the figure: where you are — Dublin and Wicklow are in more demand and can command more — and how much of your life the production needs. Fees are negotiated directly between you and the production.

One thing to watch: the hourly rates you see on a locations platform are the rates a production pays to book, before VAT and before whatever the platform takes. They are not what lands in your account.

Questions

The practical questions

Does my house have to be nice?

On the evidence, no. What is described as decisive is character and practicality — parking, access, storage, power, toilets — rather than how impressive the house is. One Irish platform says personality matters more than valuable furniture.

Do I have to live somewhere else?

Sometimes. One location manager says it is preferable that owners move out for the duration, even for a few days. Where that happens, bigger-budget productions factor alternative accommodation into the payment.

Can I say no to parts of it?

Yes. Rooms can be put out of bounds, changes are agreed in advance line by line, and where relevant you may be sent the script so you can see what is being filmed.

What happens to my insurance?

This is not established. PlotNua found no authoritative Irish source on how household insurance treats commercial filming, and it will vary by policy. Check with your own insurer before agreeing anything.

Is the money taxable?

Income is taxable and has to be declared. What PlotNua could not establish is which category a location fee falls into — Revenue publishes guidance on rental income but nothing specific to location fees. That is a question for Revenue or your own adviser.

Does this need planning permission?

Not established. PlotNua found no Irish source on whether repeated commercial filming at a private home engages planning as a change of use. If you were thinking about doing it often, that is worth asking your local authority.

What does an agency take?

Not published. No Irish location agency PlotNua checked publishes its commission. Ask before you list.

What if my house is rented, or I share the title?

The national register asks whether you are the owner, a tenant or an agent, and asks you to confirm you have authorisation. If you are not the sole owner, that is a conversation to have first.

Looking Ahead

Everything future-facing on this page is in this section and nowhere else.

What makes this hard for a homeowner is not the idea. It is that the qualifying questions are practical ones nobody has ever asked them: can a van park here, is there a way in that avoids the house, is there somewhere dry to leave equipment, could you leave for three days.

Those are answerable. A future version of PlotNua could ask a small number of questions like that and tell you honestly whether your property clears the practical bar that location registers actually test for — and, just as usefully, where it plainly does not.

That does not exist yet. Nothing on this page assesses your property.

Evidence

The evidence behind this

Where this page states something, it is because a named source states it. Where no source could be found, the page says so rather than filling the gap.

The national and local registers — read directly

Screen Ireland — Locations Database. The national development agency operates a Locations Database with a public “Register a Property” route. The registration form runs to seven sections, states approximately twenty minutes, and asks for “as much information and as many images as possible”. It requires an Owner / Tenant / Agent declaration and a separate authorisation confirmation, and it requires an Eircode and a county; the county list covers all twenty-six and the nearest-town list runs to several hundred Irish towns. Its public browse categories are Action & Adventure, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, Period Britain, Historical Drama, Studio Sets and Hidden Gems. There is no ordinary-homes category. Read 24 September 2026.

Wicklow Film Office — homeowner location form. Owned and operated by Wicklow County Council, running its own location library with its own homeowner registration form. The form asks for a property description, a location category, storage areas (dimensions, secure, weatherproof), parking, and restrictions — its own example being “open to the public or property in use Sunday mornings”. It states: “Please note that locations added without corresponding images will not be approved.” Its fourth declaration states that the office “will not have any liability to the location owners for any loss, damages, costs or expenses… as a result of any arrangements the location owner may make with third parties introduced through Wicklow Film Office”.

Superseded, and recorded here rather than removed. That form is the older Wicklow County Council document. The office’s current site, read 25 September 2026, describes something different: it directs people to browse the Screen Ireland database, and asks anyone who wants a location added to contact the office. The page above follows the current position. The older document is kept in this drawer because it is what a homeowner may still find, and because it is where the liability wording quoted here comes from.

How ordinary homes are actually found — named practitioners

Reported in national press, 20 July 2025, and attributed there by name.

Peter Conway, location manager. For “ordinary” properties he identifies a street the production team agrees on and does a letter drop, then follows up on responses. On matching non-Irish settings: “Because we service a lot of TV shows set in the UK or in America, it can be a challenge trying to match American architecture.”

Stephanie O’Sullivan, SoScout. “What clients are looking for is as much variety as possible, and that the home has personality… Personality takes precedence over valuable furniture. It is something that can’t be created.” SoScout’s main business is content creators and production companies working for advertising agencies. It lists roughly 150 homes, and was founded because its founders found no Irish locations website existed.

What the money looked like in named cases

Every figure below is bound to the scenario it was given for. None of them is a rate card, and no Irish rate card was located.

Around €500 — a two-hour, minimally invasive exterior shoot at a typical mid-terrace home, described by location manager Mick Swan as something that “might only net you €500”.
€700 – €1,500 — an average shoot of an eight-hour day with smaller crews, per SoScout.
€500 – €1,000 per day — TV drama and feature, attributed to Wicklow Film Office.
€10,000 – €20,000 per week — a Killiney mansion, per Mick Swan.
“In the region of €30,000” — Currane House, Achill, for twelve weeks in total with the owners moved out, per the named homeowners.

Fees are negotiated directly between homeowner and production. Dublin and Wicklow are more in demand and can command higher fees. Where the homeowner must move out, an amount for alternative accommodation is factored in, “at least on bigger-budget productions”.

Platform listing rates are a different thing entirely. SoScout listings show roughly €113 – €162 per hour plus VAT on eight-hour bookings. Those are gross booking rates before VAT and before the platform’s own share. They are not homeowner earnings and are not presented as such anywhere on this page.

What homeowners were told — named practitioners

Peter Conway: “It is the most private space and it needs a level of trust to give over your home to film and TV production.” “There will be equipment and people all over the place. On bigger productions there can be up to 200 people on set.” He says it is preferable that people move out for the duration, “even if it’s only for a few days”, and that “people with young kids might find it too disruptive.” Location managers go through all the changes they want to make line by line before anything happens.

Mick Swan makes owners aware of which rooms will be used and for what, and “will send them a script to flag scenes depicting anything they might consider offensive or controversial, such as horror or violence”. He notes “there can be multiple visits from crew even before they decide to use your home” and that “it’s not money for nothing. You have to sign a contract agreeing to the terms and read all the emails.”

Liz Allen describes home location filming as “massively invasive”: “You have to protect the house, the crew and the equipment.”

Currane House, Achill. Four weeks of art-department pre-production, six weeks of filming, one to two weeks to strip out. The owners were told which rooms to leave “as is”, and “some of the rooms were not to be used at all.”

On restoration. Location managers say everything is put back exactly as it was. That is a practitioner statement about how those individuals work. It is not a verified contractual standard, and it is not a guarantee.

SoScout profiles specify power access, parking, wifi and WCs.

What this evidence does not establish

Insurance. How household insurance treats commercial filming is not established. It is per-policy. Production insurance standards in Ireland are not established either.
Planning. The planning treatment of repeated commercial filming at a private home is not established. No Irish source was located.
Tax. The tax classification of a location fee is not established. Revenue publishes rental-income guidance; no location-fee-specific guidance was located.
Agency commission. Not published by any Irish agency checked.
Contract terms. Cancellation terms, preparation and strike rates, overtime and security deposits are not established.
Conversion. No Irish data is published on how often a listing leads to a booking.

And four things this page will not let itself imply. That Screen Ireland seeks ordinary homes — its own categories say otherwise, and the evidence for ordinary homes comes from practitioners. That listing leads to selection — nothing published supports that. That restoration is contractually guaranteed — it is a practitioner account. And that PlotNua can put a property forward — it cannot, and it is not a location agency.