TV & Movies

Line Of Duty Fans Might Recognise These Bloodlands S2 Filming Locations

The shows were filmed in and around Northern Ireland.

by Sophie McEvoy
James Nesbitt as Tom Brannick in Bloodlands S2
BBC/HTM Television

Following the success of the BBC police procedural Bloodlands in 2021, fans of the series will be eager to see the return of James Nesbitt as DCI Tom Brannick after the revelation in its first season finale. Actors like Lola Petticrew, Lorcan Cranitch, and Charlene McKenna return for another murder mystery, in addition to Victoria Smurfit as Olivia, a new role that will prove essential to this chapter of the story. But where exactly was Bloodlands series 2 filmed?

Filming began earlier this year, with James Nesbitt and the Bloodlands cast spotted filming in the Springhill area of Bangor in County Down, Northern Ireland. Like season one, filming also took place in and around Belfast, in addition to Strangford Lough. In March, Nesbitt and Petticrew were seen filming on Donegall Street in Belfast. A few of these locations will be familiar to Line Of Duty fans.

For Nesbitt, returning to Northern Ireland to film was a “really special” experience, as he told The Belfast Telegraph. “I am very much an actor who is drawn to work in Northern Ireland,” he said in another interview with the newspaper. “I always go back a lot of the time to Bloody Sunday when Paul Greengrass used to say that ‘For a Northern Irish actor tackling the Troubles is kind of their King Lear in a way,’” Nesbitt explained. “It’s kind of their thing there and there’s a responsibility and this seemed to embody everything and it had the thrilling aspect of cat and mouse.”

Nesbitt and the Bloodlands cast and crew were spotted in Belfast city centre, filming in Portaferry and Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter. During a set visit, Nesbitt told BelfastLive that “to do something so embedded in Northern Ireland like this story and to play a character who asks a lot of questions of an audience and… audiences here are very intelligent because we’ve grown up with an awful lot here and know when we are being patronised or lied to.”