Lights, cameras and action, action, action

You'll never see them kissing the hero(ine) as the credits roll - but when the director yells "Action!", these people take it literally. They're professional stunt performers, and there is only a handful of them in Ireland. Most of the 17 members of the Stunt Actors' Register and the 10-15 members of the Stunt Association of Ireland are familiar to cinema and television viewers worldwide - but no one asks for their autographs.

"We get to do all the exciting scenes and none of the boring stuff," says stuntman Patrick Condren (34), who was a full-time professional stuntman for 17 years before becoming a stunt co-ordinator and setting up the Irish Stunt Actors' Register. He was the Irish Heavyweight Kickboxing Champion at 17 and answered a newspaper advertisement for trainee stunt actors. His first on-screen stunt role was as a British soldier in a riot scene in a TV film about Northern Ireland, Children in the Crossfire, and a staged "fight" during a comedy sketch on the Late Late Show was his next stunt. Patrick has long since lost the hunger for an adrenaline buzz, and says he could not feel scared even if he wanted to.

"I personally have never felt in danger because I'm not a nervous person. Some people live for the adrenaline rush, but I find that a very dangerous quality in a stuntman." He now prefers working creating "the illusion of danger" as a stunt co-ordinator. "When something is inherently dangerous, it's a big challenge to make it safe - and still have it looking dangerous." He also has to make scenes look realistic. "It's tempting to make everything look like an action scene from a James Bond movie, but that wouldn't work for Fair City," he explains. "You have to bear in mind the personality of the person you're playing. A mild-mannered accountant fending off some thugs with his briefcase is not going to suddenly turn into Bruce Lee - so you make him fight in a clumsy way, the way an ordinary person being attacked would react."

Setting his youngest brother, Brendan (25) on fire was one of the highlights of Patrick's career as a stunt co-ordinator. The scene is in Irish director John Lynch's Night Train, to be released soon. Brendan burned from head to toe for 20 seconds - to make sure the star, John Hurt, wasn't. His only protection was a flame-resistant refrigeration gel, in which his underclothes were soaked for 24 hours beforehand. A stunt actor needs good acting skills to play both a fictional character and the actor in the role. Stuntwoman Yvonne Nolan, who is six foot tall, has doubled both for six foot tall Mira Sorvino (in Lulu On the Bridge, co-starring Harvey Keitel) and tiny Julie Walters (in the TV mini-series, Jake's Progress). Sorvino commented: "Normally they give me some hefty type to be my double. You're the first double I've ever had who actually has a better figure than me." Nolan started in 1986, having been "scouted" by the Condrens. "She was a competitor in athletics and was also involved in horseriding and parachuting, so she already had some of the skills," says Patrick Condren. Sarah Buckley was also headhunted by Patrick after he had spotted her in a fitness competition. Her background in gymnastics, bodybuilding, horseriding and swimming made her an ideal candidate for a stunt career.

Patrick Condren knows of only four stuntwomen in Ireland - all members of his Stunt Actors' Register - and says there is less work for stuntwomen "because female roles don't usually involve action scenes" - but his organisation has a policy of positive discrimination. "If a role is open to a male or female stunt actor - say it's a crowd scene, and the crowd can consist of men and women - I'll always give the stuntwoman the opportunity, because they get such a small amount of work anyway.

"I think that, psychologically, it's harder for women because they go through the same training as the men and they know that there is not going to be the same amount of work at the end of it." The stunts can be tougher for a stuntwoman, he says, as "a woman often has to wear the most unsuitable clothes for dangerous activities - she might have to jump from a great height onto concrete, wearing a cocktail dress and high heels. A man could at least wear padding on his legs under his trousers."

Part of the stunt co-ordinator's skill is in disguising safety devices from the viewers. "A stunt co-ordinator, director and producer can all be sued if they fail to take the necessary precautions," Patrick explains. Stuntwoman Anna Stuart (26) recalls having to wear a seat-belt under her clothes when she played Helen in the Fair City car crash (with Eamon Kelly, who doubled for Paul, at the wheel). "They had to cut the back out of my blouse and put the seatbelt under it."

Doubling for 007 may be every stuntman's dream - but stuntman Eamon Kelly, Pierse Brosnan's double in the recently-released The Nephew, always knew he'd end up as "a bum". As the main stuntman on Father Ted, he played the naked camper who was knocked down by Ted's car. "I've the best-known backside in Ireland," he laughs.

Kelly also doubled for Dermot Morgan and Ardal O'Hanlon. "They used a device called an air-ram to simulate Father Jack punching me - so I got to fly across the room a lot. It's no joke being hit by 500 pounds per square inch of air pressure." Even more painful was his stunt-double role as Martin Cahill in Though the Sky Falls, a film about Veronica Guerin's murder (directed by John McKenzie). "I was shot into glass - and they used real glass, instead of the stunt glass which is made of sugar. The director wanted it to be realistic - and it certainly felt realistic," Kelly winces.

"Danger money" could earn a good stuntman £100,000 a year, says Eamon. High fees are also justified by having to put aside money for "rest periods" when work is scarce.

Stuntmen like Eamon Kelly and the Condren brothers will always find work somewhere, but even they admit to being worried by the decline of the film business in Ireland. American productions are now being lost to places such as the Isle of Man, which doubled for Ireland in Waking Ned, and eastern Europe, where the facilities and labour are both cheap and excellent.

Meanwhile, the best way for stunt actors to find work is by word-of-mouth - especially from other stunt actors. Newcomer Gary Robinson (26) was discovered by veteran stuntman Bronco McLoughlin 18 months ago. Robinson, from Castleknock, Co Dublin, had been a member of the Grange Gymnastics Club in Dublin, and had just returned from the University of Illinois, where he had been on a sports scholarship, when McLoughlin contacted the club looking for a gymnast who could perform backflips in the children's TV series, Mystic Knights.

Robinson's many roles in the series involved dressing up as various fantastic creatures. "I got to wear some great costumes while I was jumping about and doing flips."