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Peter Claffey as Ser Duncan the Tall in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Alamy Stock Photo
peter claffey
Who is the Irish former rugby player starring in the new Game of Thrones spin-off?
The Guardian remarked that Peter Claffey, a former rugby player clocking in at 6 ft 5 in, is ‘suitably tall’ for the role.
THE WORLD OF Westeros is back on our screens with the latest instalment from the Game of Thrones universe.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is a prequel to Game of Thrones and premiered on HBO last week.
The six-episode season can also be viewed on Sky Atlantic.
The new show was filmed in several locations across the North, including Glenarm Castle in Co Antrim, Tollymore Forest in Co Down, as well as the Mourne Mountains.
Game of Thrones was also primarily filmed in Northern Ireland.
But that’s not the only connection that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms has to Ireland.
The titular knight is Ser Duncan the Tall, otherwise known as Dunk, who is played by Peter Claffey.
Claffey has only been acting professionally for a few years and prior to this was a rugby union player.
The 29-year-old hails from Portumna in Co Galway.
He joined the Connacht Rugby academy in 2015 and went on to sign a professional contract there in 2018.
He also played for Ireland in the 2016 Six Nations Under 20s Championship.
However, Claffey failed to break into the first team at Connacht and in an interview with The Independent said this was “probably the most isolating, lonely year I’ve ever had”.
Claffey then turned his attention to acting and graduated from the Bow Street Academy in 2020, making his professional stage debut two years later in Tom Murphy’s A Whistle in the Dark at the Abbey Theatre.
His onscreen career began in the same year and he made an appearance in Apple TV’s Bad Sisters, which is a black comedy developed by and starring Sharon Horgan.
He went on to have a recurring role in the second season of Bad Sisters, as well as appearing in Netflix’s Vikings: Valhalla and BBC Three’s Wreck.
Claffey also made an appearance in the film adaptation of Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These.
However, his turn as Dunk in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is his biggest role to date.
The new show is critically acclaimed, with a 95% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
The Guardian remarked that Claffey, measuring 6 ft 5 in, is a “suitably tall former Irish rugby union player” to portray Ser Duncan the Tall.
The BBC, meanwhile, praised the natural chemistry between Claffey and his co-star, 11-year-old Dexter Sol Ansell, who plays Aegon ‘Egg’ Targaryen.
“Both the old gods and the new were smiling over the production when Claffey and Ansell were cast,” writes Neil Armstrong in BBC Culture.
“They are brilliant individually and the chemistry between them is extraordinary.
“You’d think they’d been working together in a Laurel and Hardy-style double act for decades, yet Claffey – a hulking former rugby player – has only been acting for a couple of years and this is his first lead part.”
Elsewhere, a review in Variety finds that Claffey “gives Dunk an open, infectious sincerity that makes him easy to love”.
Meanwhile, Claffey describes himself as a “complete nerd” and revealed in The Independent that he was “obsessed” with Game of Thrones and was even ”one of those people that was like, that ending wasn’t good enough”.
He added that he “really wants to get things right” for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
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