![\"Cartoon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/4842879_1_articleinline_Wolfwalkers_Stills_00268.jpeg.jpg\" "\\"Cartoon")
Cartoon Saloon’s Wolfwalkers.<\/p>\nIn middle of the last century, a time existed when Disney was the only studio in the English-speaking world that regularly produced feature-length animated films. It didn\u2019t last long.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerican drawn-animation feature films died a death around the 1980s when they became too expensive to make,\u201d says filmmaker and animator Steve Woods, whose book Drawing the Line covers the long story of Irish animation.<\/p>\n
It was around this time that Don Bluth, a prominent Disney animator with a penchant for charming and timeless designs, decided to cut ties and set up Sullivan Bluth Studios from a new home in Dublin, lured by generous tax incentives offered by the Industrial Development Authority (IDA).<\/p>\n
\u201cThe IDA got a rush of blood to the head that made them see that creating these studios would employ hundreds of semi-skilled workers,\u201d Woods continues.<\/p>\n
As a result, a mini-boom of Irish-made animation started, with a big-hitters to cement their status in the history books.<\/p>\n
\u201cBluth completed An American Tail with Steven Spielberg here, and The Land Before Time was the first full-length animation feature entirely made in Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sullivan Bluth Studios was formed in Islandbridge, with the help of American businessman Morris Sullivan, in 1985.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As the hits started coming, Bluth realised he needed a steady stream of help at his Dublin offices to capitalise. He helped to set up a new animation course at Ballyfermot College of Further Education in 1989, a top-tier curriculum that still exists today.<\/p>\n
However, following a suite of box-office disappointments in the early 1990s, as well as the integration of computers deeming Bluth\u2019s workforce largely redundant, Sullivan Bluth closed in late 1995, but not without paving the way for new companies to form.<\/p>\n
\u201cBrown Bag, a prominent studio today, came out of the first wave,\u201d Woods says, \u201cand Cartoon Saloon the second.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cartoon Saloon’s Wolfwalkers.<\/p>\n
Cartoon Saloon was founded in 1999 by former Ballyfermot students Paul Young, Tomm Moore, and Nora Twomey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With a base in Kilkenny, most Irish people will associate them with Academy Award nominations, most notably for their works The Secret of Kells (2009), Song of the Sea (2015), The Breadwinner (2018), Wolfwalkers (2021), and short film Late Afternoon (2019).<\/p>\n
Gerry Shirren, who once worked as a production manager at Sullivan Bluth, is the managing director of Cartoon Saloon, a company he described as \u201chand-to-mouth\u201d for its first decade.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were working out of a convent in Kilkenny, a space they were given to work from,\u201d he smiles. \u201cAnd they kept the doors open by doing commercials and other bits of work, while working on bigger projects. Suddenly, they were nominated for an Academy Award.\u201d<\/p>\n
This kick-started a kind of \u201cgolden era\u201d, he says. Irish animation, according to Shirren, is \u201cvery well regarded\u201d across the world, largely due to courses like Ballyfermot and studios like Sullivan Bluth, which gave focus to a team of clearly talented individuals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe demise of Don Bluth\u2019s studio allowed for a number of small operations from people who had training and knowledge to bloom all over,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat impact still exists today. We have bigger names that people know, like Kavaleer and Brown Bag, but there are also 20 to 30 small operations across the island that are getting increasingly well known.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, at least eight bachelor\u2019s degree programmes for animation exist, some among the best in Europe, with many more certificate and diploma options available in Ireland.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And for good reason: animation is one of Hollywood\u2019s most profitable genres, with a recent valuation of more than $430bn.<\/p>\n
This growth, paired with the advent of streaming services and a bottomless need for new content, has created space to expand what animation we consume.<\/p>\n
![\"\u201cThings](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/4842882_1_articleinline_ronan_20mccabe.jpg\" "\\"\u201cThings")
\u201cThings were very robust during covid because of streamers,\u201d Ronan McCabe, CEO of Animation Ireland, the representative trade body for animation studios, says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThings were very robust during covid because of streamers,\u201d Ronan McCabe, CEO of Animation Ireland, the representative trade body for animation studios, says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn fact, we were one of the few creative industries that were active the entire time. That has eased off for some reason \u2014 perhaps streaming services have noticed that animation doesn\u2019t drive subscriptions like live action, but they\u2019re certainly not commissioning like they used to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite this, Ireland sits on a world stage when it comes to animation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe curious thing about Irish animation is that we have the sensibilities of European storytelling, with the knowledge of big US studios,\u201d Woods says. \u201cIt works for us really well.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, as with the rest of the arts industry in Ireland, the biggest problem is almost always funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always the issue,\u201d McCabe says. \u201cWe always have ideas, but it\u2019s just getting them financed. Much like live-action work, we\u2019re reliant on the Section 481 tax credit \u2014 without that, it would be difficult to sustain the industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis business is all about networking, which is why we\u2019re always showing our faces at fairs and markets. The common themes in animation are collaboration and cooperation \u2014 because the only way to get things done is through co-production. It\u2019s the DNA of the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"JAM](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/4842885_1_articleinline_192696-beddybyes-horizontal-90e64b4e7ca50c4b2f82d387c963d1c1_1_.jpg\" "\\"JAM")
JAM Media’s BeddyByes<\/p>\n
A misconception exists that animated films, with their cute cartoons and limitless creativity, are easy projects.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are way more difficult to make than live action,\u201d McCabe continues. \u201cYou have your script, then your voice record, which is all done at the start, but then you have to animate it all, and that can take years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some characters, according to animators, can require up to 12 drawings to be created per second of film.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s painstaking,\u201d says McCabe, who previously worked on The Zig and Zag Show.\u00a0\u201cAnimators work in seconds, not minutes. Think about it \u2014 if you take a camera outside right now to shoot a film, you already have a background, weather, and potentially an actor that exists in front of you. With animation, you\u2019re literally starting with a blank page.\u201d<\/p>\n
No one expected small studios based in rural Ireland, such as Cartoon Saloon, Jam Media (whose show BeddyByes was recently picked up by Disney), and Brown Bag, to succeed on the art world\u2019s biggest stages, and even fewer expected the stories behind those projects to be borne of Irish stories. As such, the best might be yet to come in terms of Ireland\u2019s animation output.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe standard of art we\u2019re seeing come out of secondary schools today is just phenomenal,\u201d Woods says. \u201cI\u2019m not sure what\u2019s driving it, but there is something in the ether.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Will](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/4842888_1_articleinline_25-18.jpeg\" "\\"Will")
Will Sliney, an Irish Marvel artist and animator<\/p>\n
The reason, according to Will Sliney, an Irish Marvel artist and animator, might just be that entry into this world, for those interested, has never been more accessible.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sliney only recently pivoted to animation and has made a name for himself with an RT\u00c9-commissioned short Droid Academy, something he created on a free, open-source software called Blender.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the course of a year, I taught myself how to use it,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing because you can make something yourself that looks better than a Pixar movie from seven or eight years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
In this way, he says, the best is yet to come. \u201cIn Ireland, we punch above our weight creatively, and programmes like these are free to use and geared towards the individual who just wants to create something fabulous. In that way, there\u2019s never been a better time to educate yourself about animation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite a downturn being felt globally in terms of animated shows being made, those in the Irish industry remain hopeful. \u201cA lot of us are very hopeful this is a plateau rather than a sign of what\u2019s to come,\u201d McCabe adds. \u201cEither way, we have to stay cautiously optimistic. People are very interested in seeing Irish people create Irish stories \u2014 it\u2019s just getting them to a place where people can see them.\u201d<\/p>\n
As with the entire Irish arts industry, creativity is never the issue. \u201cThe brilliant thing is we have a wide variety of different types of studios here,\u201d Sliney says. \u201cAs a country, we\u2019re storytellers, and we\u2019re well known for our music, actors, all that kind of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the final key to unlocking a huge future for animation in Ireland? Fighting the mindset that it\u2019s somehow less worthy than other creative industries.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the area that we achieve the most in, genuinely, is animation,\u201d Sliney adds. \u201cIt goes right back to the Book of Kells. What we need to do now is spread awareness of that fact.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marvel artist Will Sliney will join CineSpark: Film & Education Day at MTU, supported by Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n. The \u2018Next Generation Programme\u2019 helps teenagers make their first steps towards a career in the animation industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In middle of the last century, a time existed when Disney was the only studio in the English-speaking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[69527,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-115252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork-film-festival","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}