Barley & Mé
Adorable English rescue dog stars in new Irish language movie Róise & Frank after ‘the summer of his life’ here hanging with locals, hurling, even learning a cúpla focail
HE may be the canine star of a new Irish language film but Barley the stunt dog is most definitely English.
But having crossed the Irish Sea for filming, the adorable 10-year-old rescue dog quickly learned the cúpla focail with the help of some sausages and is now one of the highlights of Róise & Frank, which opened in cinemas this week.
The dog spent ‘the summer of his life’ in Ireland, dancing to trad music, getting to know the locals and being taught how to hurl by dog handler, Ash Foster.
Mr Foster said: ‘He basically had a jolly holiday with me and my other dog Antilly the Wonderhound, who played Ricky Gervais’ dog in After Life.’
Róise and Frank is the story of a widow who has given up on life and becomes convinced a stray dog is the reincarnation of her hurling-loving husband.
Directors Peter Murphy and Rachael Moriarty sniffed out the super-stunt dog to play Frank after lengthy auditions.
Barley holds the number two spot on Róise and Frank’s cast list below Bríd Ní Neachtain who played the other lead .
Barley had previously played Garrick, Demelza’s dog in Poldark.
His handler said: ‘Barley is a top-tier stunt dog, the best we have. The directors were looking for that one-in-a-million dog
‘We had to pull out all the stops with every trick’
and that was Barley, he can do it all.
‘We had to sell the idea that he was a reincarnated human, so we had to pull out all the stops with every single trick he had.’
It seemed mission impossible to have an English dog working on an Irish film due to the language barrier.
But apart from sausages, Barley also responded to hand gestures, so language was not an issue.
It was hurling that presented the biggest challenge to the English-born pup.
Mr Foster said: ‘Barley was supposed to be a hurling coach, as Frank, and I’d never even heard of hurling before. I had to have a crash course in that and then teach Barley. He’s quite toy-motivated anyway, so it wasn’t impossible.’
Eye contact with human actors was maintained by sticking a Frankfurter to the end of a sound boom and placing it behind Bríd.
Trained through treats, Barley can stand on his hind legs, play dead and go to markers that are inconspicuous bits of wood and stand by them.
The Irish directors travelled to England to audition Barley and discuss how the script would work technically.
One moment in the original script required Barley to throw and catch a ball repeatedly in the air.
Mr Forster said: ‘As brilliant as Barley is, there is no way I could have taught him to do that.’
The directors initially made the trip to audition Antilly to play the role because, as a German Shepherd, he fitted the part better and ‘he has a CV longer than most actors’.
But Mr Foster, who owns Antilly, admitted: ‘They needed that one-ina-million special dog who could do it all, and that was Barley.’
Eagle-eyed watchers would, however, have seen Antilly’s cameo in the dog pound scene.
A rescue dog from Battersea Dogs Home, no one is really sure of Barley’s breed but Mr Foster referred to him fondly as ‘a scruffy mutt’. He was abandoned by his owners as a one-year-old because they became allergic to him.
But Mr Foster said: ‘That’s a very common excuse, you don’t just become allergic to a dog after one year.’
Barley was rescued in 2012 by dog trainer Gill Raddings who rehomed him to a family and trained him up to be a superstar stunt dog.
When he’s not working, Barley is just an everyday family dog.
His owner says he now considers him ‘an Irish Rover’.