70 Years After Its Filming, We Return to the Irish Village of 'The Quiet Man'

Sean Thornton, a heavyweight boxer from the United States of Irish descent, returns to Innisfree, his birthplace on the West of the Emerald Isle, to reconnect with his roots and restart his life. Upon his arrival, he falls in love with the red-haired Mary Kate Danaher (some scenes take place in the pub shown in the opening photo of this article, which still exists today), sister of the town's chieftain and, in the process of trying to reclaim his humble family home named 'Blanca Mañana' to start a family, he encounters opposition from his future brother-in-law, Will Danaher.

Thornton, a noble and composed man, will have the friendship of the matchmaker Michaeleen Oge Flynn and the good folks of the town, living through a conflicted experience of adaptation, blending drama and comedy, full of misunderstandings and entanglements, not devoid of violence, until he achieves his goal. The story is narrated by Father Lonergan.

Directed by John Ford, who won an Oscar for Best Director in 1952 and another Oscar for Best Color Cinematography awarded to Winton C. Hoch and Archie Stout, after five other nominations. It also received the Director's Guild of America Award and the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Screenplay in the Comedy category. The screenplay is by Frank S. Nugent, based on a story by Maurice Walsh. The excellent musical score is by Victor Young, and it is said that without the legend, Maureen O'Hara died in her Idaho home at over ninety years old listening to the soundtrack of her favorite film, 'The Quiet Man.'

The main roles are played by: John Wayne (Sean Thornton), Maureen O'Hara (Mary Kate Danaher), Barry Fitzgerald (Michaeleen Oge Flynn), Victor McLaglen (Will Danaher), Ward Bond (Father Peter Lonergan), Mildred Natwick (Widow Sara Tillane)... And all the inhabitants of the tiny village of Cong, located between the Irish counties of Galway and Mayo, the place chosen by Ford to simulate the idyllic and nonexistent Innisfree, which had only existed as a utopian place to rest peacefully in the verses of the poet Yeats.

A film that almost had an abrupt ending when during the filming of the horse racing scene Ford installed a fan to blow the red hair of O'Hara. Maureen, tired of having her hair stuck in her face, decided to kick the fan, or so it goes. Ford, angry, approached her in a very rude manner, and the redhead angrily retorted, 'What would you know, bald son of a bitch, about hair getting in your eyes...!' The entire crew stood stunned, waiting for the terrible reaction of John Ford. But he, after thinking it over, laughed and everything calmed down. Thankfully.

Umberto Eco, in his excellent book 'History of Legendary Lands and Places,' dedicated to the mythical cities and regions that left a mark on the collective imagination, between reality and legend, forgot to refer to the memory of some films to complete his magical and utopian geography. An excusable oversight, due to his inclination toward classical heritage, but that infringes upon the memories and daydreams of us, the spectators, who complete our sentimental education in the double feature cinema.

Neither Brigadoon, the Scottish village lost in the Highlands recreated by Vincente Minnelli in 1954, that hamlet which emerged from the mists of time every hundred years for Gene Kelly to fall in love with Cyd Charisse (who wouldn't?); nor Shangri-La, the monastery located in an inaccessible valley of Tibet, where one could savor eternity, recreated by Frank Capra in 1937, found a place in Eco's essay. Not even the small Valencian village of Calabuch, recreated by the finest Berlanga, in that sad and depressed Spain of 1956. But the most serious oversight was that Innisfree, created by Ford's imagination in 1952, remained uncharted on the map of magical places of Mr. Umberto. A great paradox considering he was, the Italian, a great connoisseur of popular culture and mass media.

The Irish village of Cong, the place finally chosen by John Ford, with its main street and two or three barely defined squares, proved to be the ideal setting to recreate its timeless character, its aspect of a place lost in the world, detached from urban hustle, where the conflict between Irish and English is hardly visible. A place almost out of History, except in Pat Cohan's pub, imaginary and hastily built in a warehouse because there can't be an Irish village without a bar, the meeting place and debate hub of the area, where the final fight between the two brothers-in-law, Sean and Will, would unfold.

A fight that became something more than a cinematic rehearsal since both actors ended up injured by Ford's insistence that the fight be realistic, previously sowing discord between them.

If when you, dear readers, finish this little book that attempts to reflect what to us authors is one of the best films in history, considered by some as epic and by others as sexist, you feel prompted to travel to Innisfree, as the unforgettable Javier Reverte or José Luis Guerin did, and as we will do with the juicy copyright royalties that will be ours, remember that you will arrive with the usual delays of the old railroad. You will be able to see Sean Thornton trying to plant roses in the gravel of 'Blanca Mañana.' And we are sure that the red-haired Mary Kate will accompany you to enjoy in Cohan's pub a splendid salmon caught, this time yes, by Father Lonergan.

To rest, we recommend a stay at the luxurious Ashford Castle for just about six hundred euros a night. A friend says that the whisky is worth it... And you will also be able to play golf in the same setting where Sean drags the red-haired Mary Kate when he tries to return her to her brother over the argument about the dowry.

A dragging that had its comedic touch when Ford and Wayne agreed to scatter sheep droppings on the ground where the heroine, 'the queen of technicolor,' was being moved, and it seemed to O'Hara that it didn't amuse her too much...

And while you are there, in the west of Ireland, feel free to travel to the Aran Islands, the ones that gave name to John Ford's yacht, the 'Araner,' the islands at the end of the western world, where fishermen will warn you, just as they did with John Millington Synge over a century ago: 'A man who is not afraid of the sea will soon drown because he will go out to sea on a day he should not go. But we are afraid of the sea and only drown every once in a while.'