Jessie Buckley's Oscar hopes boost Ireland’s soft power in tense trade era

All eyes will be on the 98th Academy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday to find out if Kerry’s Jessie Buckley will take home the award for Best Actress.

Jessie Buckley is the hot favourite to win her first Oscar at the Academy Awards on Sunday, underlining again the extent of Ireland’s global cultural reach.

A win for the Hamnet actor would represent another marketing bonanza for a country of just 5m on the edge of Europe. Irish producers have also been recognised at the ceremony, including Element Pictures, a producer on Best Picture-nominated Bugonia.

Using culture and sport to bolster the nation’s soft power is becoming an increasingly important strand of Irish diplomacy, as it grapples with US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly criticised Ireland’s tax regime. The Oscars come just before St Patrick’s Day, when the Taoiseach will visit the  White House to meet the US president.

“Policymakers love the impact of the soft power of Ireland’s film industry, where Irish productions are seen to represent Ireland positively on the global stage,” Maria O’Brien, taxation lecturer who specialises in the creative industries at the University of Galway, said.

Buckley is the latest Irish acting talent to be recognised at the Academy Awards. Twice-nominated Michael Fassbender was raised in the same Killarney area as Buckley. Cillian Murphy, from Cork, won Best Actor two years ago for Oppenheimer. Saoirse Ronan and Ruth Negga only add to the list of Irish actors nominated in recent years.

In a bid to build on their success, culture minister Patrick O’Donovan will be meeting with studios in Atlanta as part of Ireland’s annual St Patrick’s Day global trade mission. Year-round, the state’s embassy network promotes Ireland as a destination for film production.

“What we’re seeing now is effectively the result of nearly 30 years of sustained investment,” Gráinne Humphreys, Dublin International Film Festival executive director, said. “We’ve managed through both a combination of hard work and some very clever strategic positioning in terms of tax incentives, in terms of locations, and sheer bloody-minded luck.” 

The government has ramped up financial support for the sector, including to record levels for the Arts Council, designed tax credits in an attempt to give it an edge over competitors, like France, at a time when Hollywood producers are looking overseas to save costs.

Ireland’s film and TV tax credits include a 32% tax credit for film productions capped to €125m per project, with regional uplifts. France’s film tax rebate has a 30% headline rate, or 40% if producers spend €2m on French visual effects, with a maximum €30m project spend. Ireland also launched a new tax incentive for game shows to film in Ireland, the first in Europe dedicated to unscripted programs, according to O’Donovan.

To be sure, courting American studios doesn’t always guarantee critical plaudits from Ireland, with some productions set there still dabbling in outdated stereotypes.

The Netflix show House of Guinness drew some local scorn for its occasionally cartoon version of Irish history, with the Irish Times calling the show “unintentionally hilarious.” The same paper described the 2020 movie Wild Mountain Thyme, set in Ireland, as “fatheaded Micksploitation.” Other productions set on the island, like Oscar-nominated Banshees of Inisherin, have received a better reception. Meanwhile, several high-profile international productions have filmed in Ireland recently, including Netflix’s second season of Wednesday. Last year, €544m was invested in the Irish economy on local jobs and services across film, television, documentary and animation, according to development agency Screen Ireland, a 26% increase on 2024.

On the political front, too, the government is treading a fine line between shoring up and broadening its own tax receipts from US companies and not irking the US administration. Trump has vowed to “make Hollywood great again” by threatening tariffs on films made outside the US, sparing details on how it would work.

Yet, soft power is something the state is doubling down on, after seeing how significant international opinion proved in the campaign to keep the Irish border open in the wake of Brexit.

“Having a spotlight at the Oscars is wonderful for the individuals involved, it’s great for the country as a whole,” said Louise Ryan, a spokesperson for Screen Ireland. “But it also presents an opportunity for Screen Ireland from a business perspective to meet with our co-production partners, streamers, studios, independent production companies, to see what further opportunity there is.” 

Last month, the government launched a sports diplomacy strategy, which includes plans to host an international sports diplomacy conference and target more major sporting events with international partners.

Dublin hosted a regular-season NFL game last year, and is set to host golf’s Ryder Cup at Adare Manor in Limerick next year. In September, Trump’s Clare golf resort will host the Irish Open.

Back in Hollywood, and beyond, meanwhile, Ireland is in vogue.

“Before as an actor it was always about having an amazing American accent, English accent, and very little time you’re actually spending in your own accent,” Raised By Wolves actor Niamh Algar said at a Dublin event. “And now you walk into a room, they’re like, ‘no, we want to see can you do it in your own accent?’ There is currency, there’s value to that.”

Bloomberg