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Here's what it was like to be part of Braveheart's epic army

Hundreds of members of the Irish Defence Forces played William Wallace’s army in the 1990s battle movie.

IN 1994, A massive film production arrived in Ireland.

They were in search of an army to stand behind and fight with Scottish warrior William Wallace in a war of independence against the English crown.

So, who better than 1,000 Irish soldiers?

Reserve members of the Irish Defence Forces were signed up to become extras and hundreds of young men worked long hours over the eight weeks of filming and got to watch an Oscar-winning movie being created.

One of these young men, now a little less young twenty years on, spoke to TheJournal.ie recently about his experience as a soldier in Mel Gibson’s army. Lar Joye, an Army Reserve Captain and a curator at the Collins Barracks museum, said letters were sent asking members if they would be interested in being extras.

“I was just out of college and I didn’t have a job so it suited me perfectly to do the eight weeks,” he said.

During an intensive two week period of filming, there were almost 2,000 extras from the Defence Forces involved. After that the number was closer to 500.

I mean nowadays you don’t need this because you just take a film of a hundred people and you multiply it in your computer and you have a crowd. But in those days, that kind of technology wasn’t there. So you did need at least a couple of hundred people to fill out the shots.

Joye was 23 at the time and said that would have been the average age of the men involved.

“The pinpoint for a lot of them was the money, the reason they were doing it was for the cash,” he said. “For a lot of people at the time it was working six days a week, it was a lot of cash, and for those who were students, it was taxfree so it was a huge benefit to them.”

Though the money had a lot to do with it for many, Joye said the experience was “amazing” and as a film buff himself, he found it fascinating to watch a group of professionals making a huge Hollywood movie.

It wasn’t all fun and games, however. For the extras, it was an early start every day and there was a lot of waiting around.

The men were broken down into groups of 50 and every morning they were part of a “conveyor belt” to get their costumes on, their wigs attached and their makeup done – and fit in some breakfast inbetween – before making their way on set.

They were given specialist training in sword handling and fighting and Joye said the extras were taught special techniques by the stunt men that would make the fighting look more impressive. They also showed them the best way to avoid taking someone’s eye out, as the weapons were sharp.

We challenged Joye to a sword-fight on the day of our interview but he said he was still recovering from the shock of realising it’s now twenty years ago since the film was made.

If you’re interested in learning more, watch part one of this documentary made by the Defence Forces behind the scenes of the filming and watch out for the short shorts…

DFMagazine / YouTube

We’ll have part two next week, which will feature an interview with Mel Gibson and some behind the scenes gossip. 

Pictures: Irish Defence Forces personnel vote in Election 2014 … from Mali>

More: These 15 photos by the Air Corps show just how breathtaking Ireland can be in the summertime>

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21 Comments
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    Mute Patrick Presley
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    Oct 26th 2023, 8:49 AM

    Enough punishment has been administered for the moment.

    186
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    Mute Donal Ronan
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    Oct 26th 2023, 9:08 AM

    Oops! Less profit for our robber banks, seeing as this is where they make most of their profits, lodging our deposits with the ECB.
    Just another way of socialising their profits at European taxpayers expense.

    97
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    Mute did you every wonder
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    Oct 26th 2023, 1:55 PM

    @Donal Ronan: But we have a regulator, apparently, that keeps prices in check !. Works great for energy and food prices !. Tax payers money at work.

    23
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    Mute larry smith
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    Oct 26th 2023, 9:03 AM

    A bank is being robbed by two gunmen . Everything went smoothly , quickly and quietly ,however before exiting the bank one gunman says to the other what kind of robbery is this if know one is injured or killed “you’re right kill that woman over there “says the other gunman ,
    What’s your name he asks the cashier the woman feebly replied Sophia,
    I can’t kill her as my wife is call Sophia,ok kill the man beside her ,hey fella what’s your name ,,Billy says the man but everyone calls me Sophia .

    108
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    Mute Liam Foy
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    Oct 26th 2023, 11:01 AM

    In what do we believe a bunch of very wealthy individuals in the ECB hiking interest rates, how well expert with experience are they. Lagarde is no expert but she leads the charge. Inflation has got much worse and still the EU has no idea how to contain it like the Japanese at their 3%. But their we go punishing decision for the average family is put off into some future date.

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    Mute Roy Kenneally
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    Oct 26th 2023, 1:39 PM

    @Liam Foy: Inflation isn’t worse. It was 8.6% in Sept 2022 and 5% in Sept 2023, ie. slowing down. It means the price of things are still going up, but not as quickly.

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    Mute Paddy C
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    Oct 26th 2023, 1:48 PM

    Lagarde said when she was here ‘she feels our pain’ doubt that somehow on her salary, pushing people into arrears and possibly homeless great work alright.

    34
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    Mute Timo
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    Oct 26th 2023, 12:08 PM

    And lucky to get 1.5% on a 5 year deposit account.
    What a joke

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    Mute Pato
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    Oct 26th 2023, 9:39 AM

    Have the idiots in the ECB finally recognised what everyone else knew all along, that hiking rates the way they did would eventually cause inflation rather than cure i

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    Mute Monetpenny
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    Oct 26th 2023, 12:33 PM

    @Pato: no. They didn’t get it during & in the aftermath of the 2007-2008 financial crash either. It is written in a widely read economics textbook somewhere that to control inflation (no matter what the cause or type of inflation) you must (‘MUST’ I tell ya) increase interest rates. So they do it.
    If inflation is ‘imported’ or is caused by government lockdowns & subsequent spending to stimulate an economy the government sedated or wars or foreign government policies that affect energy supply & costs it doesn’t matter.
    We don’t stop those wars. We don’t reverse government policy & increase energy supply.
    We increase interest rates.

    22
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    Mute Mick Duvanny
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    Oct 26th 2023, 1:41 PM

    @Monetpenny: See Turkey for what happens when you reduce interest rates during high inflation

    13
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    Mute Eddie Garvey
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    Oct 26th 2023, 3:36 PM

    They printed so much money to keep the economies booming, which had the effect of devaluing our money and our wages, which caused inflation to strike, then they massively increased interest rates to stop people spending the money they added to the system. They are literally making it up as they go along to ensure the wealthy stay wealthy

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    Mute World Taekwondo Association Master Sheamus
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    Oct 26th 2023, 11:02 AM

    About Time, Seriously

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    Mute Des Leavy
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    Oct 26th 2023, 10:51 AM

    Comments Closed

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    Mute Jonathan Hanlon
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    Oct 26th 2023, 1:35 PM

    Please start dropping

    14
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    Mute Alan Fitzgerald
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    Oct 26th 2023, 2:45 PM

    Surely a huge chunk of inflation is down to energy price increases and interest rates increases will have little to no effect on these. Government tax and excise increases also fuels the fire and again interest rates won’t effect these.

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    Mute R Incognito
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    Oct 26th 2023, 2:32 PM

    My fixed rate @ 2.6% is ending in November. Should I re-fix @ 4.15% ( lowest fixed rate available to me ) or stay on a variable @ 4.50% and wait and see if things improve ? I don’t know what to do :-(

    7
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    Mute Paddy C
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    Oct 28th 2023, 9:25 AM

    @R Incognito: very hard one to answer,Im on tracker and my mortgage is up through the roof now for not fixing it and I was also advised to fix it unless I was sure I could keep up with rising payments but if I fix tracker is gone and too long left to go,the only thing I would say is if you could fix it short term at least you wouldnt be after commiting to it too much,a long fixed rate is a nightmare if rates drop, we were on fixed years ago of 5.4 and crash came and rates dropped and losing a fortune had to pay 4,600 to break out of it for the mortgage to drop 400 a month so my advice is if it’s variable try short term fixed especially now that they’re pausing increases

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    Oct 26th 2023, 2:07 PM

    Increasing interest rates to combat this inflation is very close to being useless. Majority of the inflation is a result of the increase in oil prices and from the war in Ukraine affecting supply of various commodities including grain. A serious question for ECB, how does increasing interest rates change oil prices or increase supply of commodities. Wouldn’t it more effective having more constructive negotiation with the Saudis and other oil producers. Also putting a ceiling on the price of basic goods, bread, eggs, pasta, etc. Increasing interest rates was always a possibility of causing recession, plus more unnecessary pain for the less well off.

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    Mute John Moore
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    Oct 26th 2023, 3:43 PM

    Rising interest rates is the only tool that the ECB have to combat inflation. But it can only do so much unless you really want to jack up rates and cause a pretty bad recession. But ECB technocrats act as though tinkering with rates contains all of the answers. It’s mostly for show to look as though they are doing something. About half of the price rises are through companies profiteering. Banks are not passing on nearly enough of the windfall through deposit rates. Whatever way the consumer turns they lose.

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    Oct 26th 2023, 11:00 AM

    I have many money

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    Mute Michael Burke
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    Oct 26th 2023, 1:57 PM

    And few brains cells.

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