The Ireland-UK Trip Day 5: The Quiet Man Tour, Ballyglunin and Ashford Castle

This morning, after breakfast, we drove into town and signed up for the 10:30 Quiet Man Tour run by the Quiet Man Museum in Cong, Ireland.

 We had about 30 minutes before the start of the tour so Martha

sat at the meeting area next to the museum while I wandered around.

The museum is located on Circular Road in Cong.

 Present day Clarke's store, below the same store as shown in the movie

A shot of Mary Kate as she was parked near Pat Cohan's Bar

The tour guide was a gentleman by the name of Jerry(sp?) who really did a great job telling us about the shooting of the Quiet Man.  He would involve members of the tour group at each stop, making us laugh and smile as scenes were acted out by the tour member.

Martha and I even got picked to act out the scene with The Widow Talane and Red Will Danagher were sitting together on a one-horse cart, getting ready to start their courtship:

source: link

The tour guide didn't have a horse drawn cart so Martha and I sat on the low

wall there, while another tour member played the part of the 

cart driver: Michaeleen Oge Flynn

Though not a scene in the movie per se, the statue above is a good

location for a bit of fun by the tour guide and a couple of willing

tour members.

After the walking portion of the tour, where he pointed out a couple of locations I'd missed in previous walking around town, we all ended up inside the Quiet Man museum where further scene antics were acted out before the tour officially ended.  A good time was had by all and everyone was a good sport.

The bicycle used by John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara

to escape from their chaperone Michaleen Oge Flynn

source: LINK

Rock wall shown near the end of the Quiet Man movie, where folks

lined up to cheer on The Reverend Mr Playfair and his Bishop.

 Present day view at same location

 The house above was used in the movie as the residence for the 

Anglican Priest, Reverend Playfair.  It was also the scene where 

John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara "borrowed" the bicycle and escaped

from Michaeleen Oge Flynn's supervision.

source: link

Near the end of the climactic fight scene between the Sean Thorton

and Red Will Danagher characters, the stream that Danagher

got punched into by John Wayne.

One more shot of the cottage used during the movie for

the scenes involving John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara and the Reverend

Cyril Playfair character played by Arthur Shields.

After the tour, Martha suggested we drive over to Ballyglunin where the train station used in the movie was located.  Just short of an hour later, we located the train station and though no one was there, the gate was unlocked so we strolled in for some pictures.

 Mary Kate and Martha at the Train Station

Ballyglunin, Ireland

Screen capture of the train station showing the train arriving

which brought John Wayne to "Castletown"

 Yours truly, imitating the pose of the station master, 

pictured below from the movie

We headed back towards Cong and Ashford Castle for an afternoon nap, getting snacks at some gas station store along the way to tide us over till dinner.  I think this ends our efforts to find film locations from the movie, it was fun finding them and I think it'll make the next viewing of the movie by us that much more enjoyable.

Ashford Castle:

After a leisurely dinner at the lodge where we're staying, we donned helmets and rode on Mary Kate over to the grounds of Ashford Castle.  We'd obtained a pass that gave us permission to be on the grounds but not inside the castle as part of being guests at the lodge.

We rode right through the front gates, turning immediately to the right to take the path past the helipad and began to wander about the rear portions of the estate.

We went past the Falconry School buildings and came upon another Quiet Man filming location!  Yep, it was Red Will Danagher's house where Sean Thornton and Michealeen Oge Flynn came to initiate courting procedures with Mary Kate Danagher.

screen capture from the movie

 Squire Danagher's home

We then wandered down a path past the Old School building and ended up in the Ard Na Gaoithe Forest Area.  It led us down to the lake where got these two shots of nearby islands and far off mountains.

We then retraced our route back towards the side gate of the castle.  One half of the gate was locked so I couldn't go in with Mary Kate, the rig.  So, Martha and I walked in to take pictures.

We ended up walking up to the front gate towers.  I left Martha there to await my arrival on Mary Kate and for some more pictures.

I returned to the side Tower Gate and posed Mary Kate briefly:

 Mary Kate and I motored back towards the front of the castle and Martha took the following shots:

Next, I asked Martha to use the archway of the near tower gate to frame me as I paused on the bridge to the outer set of towers.  This was in order to replicate this scene from the Quiet Man Movie:

Vine-covered back in 1951 when the movie was made,

it's now bare stone again.

That's it for today!  We leave the Cong area tomorrow for Lough Derg to overnight in Killaloe.

Update: The next morning, we checked out Saint Mary's Church on the way out of town and found it was the same church used in the "Quiet Man" movie.  In this scene, Sean Thornton and Maureen O'Hara interact at the Holy Water fountain after the church service.