SOME serious angst in Britain, it seems, at Steven Spielberg's decision to film a large chunk of Saving Private Ryan on the Wexford beaches rather than in Britain. Curracloe sur mer will become the Normandy beaches for a large chunk of the summer.

Ireland's generous tax breaks for film makers weren't the only reasons, it seems, for Spielberg's decision to film part of the movie in Britain, but the beach landing scenes in Curracloe.

Originally, Spielberg planned to film the D Day landing scenes on a stretch of deserted coast in Norfolk or Northumberland. But then the ever helpful Whitehall told Spielberg he couldn't have the services of the 1,000 Territorial Army reservists he needed as extras.

Enter our own Department of Defence, which told the director there would no problem using Irish soldiers as extras if the movie came to Ireland. After all, didn't our own squaddies don furs and blue paint to become an army of savage Scots for Mel Gibson.