Tensions, tourism and pastoral images of the West of Ireland in three films

This paper will discuss three films about Ireland: The Quiet Man, directed by John Ford; Ryan’s Daughter, directed by David Lean; and Into the West written by Jim Sheridan and directed by Mike Newell. It will examine the way these films impact idealized tourist perceptions of Ireland but actually undercut this by exposing tensions between men and women, between colonialism and independence, and between tradition and modernity.

Ford’s film portrays an Irish American man, who returns to the birthplace of his mother in Connemara and marries a local woman, who won’t consummate the marriage until her dowry is paid. When the film was made in 1951, Connemara was experiencing an emigration rate of 18%. Thus the theme of the Irish American returning from exile to find his home in an idealized countryside of Celtic crosses and pony carts would appeal to many Irish Americans longing for a traditional community while this pastoral illusion was by then being rejected by Irish people who deplored the economic realities masked by idealized images of rural Ireland. The film ignores the political and economic issues of the 1920s setting of the short story on which it was based yet satirizes the pastoral myth through the words of the widow Tillane, who says that Inisfree is “far from being heaven” and asks Sean is he plans to turn the Thornton thatched cottage into a tourist attraction. The film boosted tourism to the area and The Quiet Man fan club meets annually in Cong’s Ashford Castle.

Ryan’s Daughter tells the story of a love affair between a local Irish woman, dissatisfied with her marriage, and a British officer, who suffered shellshock during World War I. The film takes place in the Dingle peninsula shortly after the Easter Rising. Again the political and economic realities are concealed by the film’s spectacular cinematography. Local gender roles and morality are restored when the community strips Rosy and crops her hair as punishment for her adultery. Filming was done during 1969 and the renewed Troubles in Northern Ireland resonated with the film’s time period. Although the National Film Board criticized the film for its portrayal of immorality and historical inaccuracy, the film grossed $89 million in the U.S. and the resulting tourism transformed the economy of the Dingle peninsula.

Into the West similarly mythologizes and romanticizes the west of Ireland. The story concerns Tito and Ossie, two impoverished traveler boys living in a Dublin high rise. Their mother died years earlier and their father has not recovered from his grief. The grandfather brings them a white horse from Connemara, hoping that their father will return to the traveler’s nomadic life-style. After the horse is stolen by a corrupt policeman, the boys see the horse on television, recover the horse and go on a magical journey to the west. When the horse swims into the ocean with Ossie to escape their pursuers, an underwater vision of his mother seems to save him.

All three films use pastoral icons of an idyllic, pre-modern, rural Ireland and represent the idealized west as a longed for home. In each film, a male character experiences healing or redemption aided by a mother, lover or both. This paper will analyze the relationship of this maternal imagery in these films to nostalgia for an irretrievable past and how this affects tourism.

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