This new Star Wars creature has a bigger link to Ireland than we thought

Or to Skellig Michael, at least.

The first full-length trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi caused a social media frenzy when it landed earlier this week - and one thing in particular caught everyone's attention. Fans finally got their first glimpse at porgs, the lovable-look species of fluffy, sea birds native to the planet Ahch-To (which looks awfully like Skellig Michael), where Luke Skywalker has been living. The fluffy critters became instant internet sensations after their debut in the trailer, inspiring countless memes and capturing the hearts of viewers. https://twitter.com/jimmyking911/status/917544672389746688 https://twitter.com/HashtagHarris/status/917807657590886400 https://twitter.com/heathdwilliams/status/917832431381762048 https://twitter.com/imsatyriasis/status/918400444090556416 https://twitter.com/BadFatherHan/status/917599768947380225 https://twitter.com/hughswolverine/status/917588874804768768 https://twitter.com/kilbrniesanders/status/918406135845044225 https://twitter.com/nerdist/status/917832927018229760 But it turns out the porgs have a big connection to Ireland - in particular, the puffins that live on Skellig Michael, where the last scenes of The Force Awakens were shot. Director Rian Johnson told Entertainment Weekly:

"If you go to Skellig at the right time of year, it’s just covered in puffins, and they’re the most adorable things in the world. "So when I was first scouting there, I saw these guys, and I was like, oh, these are part of the island. And so the porgs are in that realm."

And Dr Mark Jessop, a marine biologist at UCC, recently told RTE Radio 1's Ray D'Arcy Show that the inspiration for porgs made sense, as the birds would be hard to miss if you were working on the island. He added:

"There’s quite a few thousand of them breeding on the Skelligs and that’s where they did a lot of the filming for Star Wars so it’s not really out of the universe that they’ve taken them as an inspiration for one of their new characters."