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.

The Ireland-UK Trip: Day 4 - Quiet Man Bridge, Clifden's Sky Road and Sheep

It had been forecasted to rain all day today but we woke to sunny and clear skies.  Bonus!

After breakfast we headed out to Oughterard, where the stone bridge used by Sean Thorton, the character played by John Wayne, was supposed to be located.  Turns out its not and we wasted some time trying to find it.  Eventually, we found a link on Google which led us right to it, after quite the detour which seemed inexplicable, oh well.

Alas, the private property fences and such prevented a desired repetition of this screen capture from the movie:

Instead, we had to settle for these shots:

We wasted quite some time at this bridge but finally Martha brought me to my senses and we motored onwards towards Clifden and lunch.

Along the way, we got some fine views of the mountains of the Connemara Region:

Clifden is a small quaint little town by the sea, and is the gateway to a route called the Sky Road as it rides a ridge that allows some rather nice views of the water.

 Clifden, Ireland

 Quite the impressive structure eh?  We saw this castle-like structure

along the Sky Road loop, but it looks like it was just someone's driveway.

(Martha was checking the map to determine what the gateway was)

 Views along the Sky Road

Martha had an ability to attract the local livestock...

On the way back towards our hotel in Cong, we stopped at the Kylemore Abbey for a brief tour of the Abbey and the Gothic Church.    Here's some more information about this rather imposing abbey: LINK.

 One's initial view of the Abbey 

 Low angle views of the Gothic Church on the estate grounds.

 Standing at the Abbey's main entrance

 Martha (the small light blue spot) standing by some nicely lit

by the sun trees alongside the water.

 A closer view of the Abbey from about the spot where Martha

was standing in the previous picture.

Mary Kate's view of the Abbey from the parking lot.

After we left the Abbey, we spent about an hour on usually narrow country roads with views of the Connemara area's mountains.  There were lots of sheep both within fenced fields and on the roads!  Yep, we came so close to some sheep who were just inches from rushing car traffic that we could see their eyes staring back at us.  Sometimes, they'd move away from traffic by a foot or so, but a lot of them just stood their ground and munched away at the roadside grass.

We had been taking side roads as we found them and we found this momma sheep and her little ewe munching away on the grass by the roadside:

We made it back to Cong with no incidents, skipped going out to dinner as we were both a bit tired from another long day of riding.  Tomorrow, we'll explore Cong's "The Quiet Man" locations hopefully along with touring the grounds of Ashford Castle.

The Ireland-UK Trip: Day 3 - Galway and Cong

After another hearty breakfast, Martha and I set out to explore the city of Galway just north of Kinvara.

After fueling up, we made a brief stop at Dunguaire Castle just for a picture, electing not to go in based on the reviews we'd seen online.

The programmed route on the GPS took us straight into the city's center and somewhat chaotic traffic conditions to my eyes.  Fortunately, it was a banking holiday today, so I imagine it is orders of magnitude worse when everyone is at work!

We found a parking garage, secure Mary Kate and went walking.

As I mentioned, it was a banking holiday and so the crowds down Shop Street were minimal.  Our first stop was to visit the Saint Nicholas Collegiate Church:

 Shop Street

 Spanish Arch, one of four archways built for when 

Spanish Galleons used to unload their goods in 

the port of Galway

We next walked over to the Galway Cathedral to take a closer look:

 The fast running river Corrib leads one to the cathedral

 A view of the Galway Cathedral from the Salmon Weir Bridge

I found the pentagon-shaped stained glass windows drew my eye.

 One of the inside views of the Galway Cathedral

As we walked back to Mary Kate, I asked 

Martha to pose by this ad by Guinness.

We didn't spend a lot of time in Galway, as others had mentioned to us, it was just a city.  We escaped northwards and headed for today's lodging destination of Cong.  Cong in the Gaelic tongue, it means "narrows".

We'll be in the Cong area the next two days or so, exploring the sights along with trying to find as many of the locations used by the John Wayne/Maureen O'Hara movie: The Quiet Man.  It's a favorite movie of Martha and I, and one of the primary objectives for this trip to Ireland.

 One of the centerpieces of the movie, Cohan's Bar....nowadays its

a pub where we had lunch today.

 Wandering about the small town of Cong, we found these

statues dedicated to John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara along

with the folks who "invaded" the town to film the movie.

The other claim to fame by Cong is the Cong Forest, a rather pleasant and sometimes densely wooded park with a stream running through it.  The park has several stone gateways that proved suitable for pictures:

Near Pat Cohan's Pub are the ruins of Cong Abbey:

 Rory O'Connor, the last High King of Ireland, was buried here in

1198, but his remains were moved later on.

 Martha at the "Quiet Man" museum and souvenir shop.

The front of the building is crafted to look like John Wayne's 

White O'Morn cottage from the movie:

source: irishecho

Near where we parked Mary Kate, the Royal Enfield Sidecar rig we rented from Retroventures, we found the house where "the dying old Man" sprang from his bed in the movie to go witness the climactic fight between Sean Thornton (John Wayne) and his brother-in-law Red Will Danagher.

Screen capture from the movie

It was 3:00 PM by now and time for us to find our lodgings for the next few nights.  It's the Manor Lodge by the Ashcroft Castle near the Cong Village.  Fancy place, meticulously maintained grounds and golf course, with gorgeously forested areas to delight the eye.

 The reception building with Mary Kate out front.

The view below of a small harbor used by Corrib Cruises is seen

from the reception building.

After getting dinner in town, we returned to the vicinity of Ashford Castle and wandered around a bit shooting video and some pictures:

 Ashford Castle from a very brief stop at the entrance to their helipad.

Ashford Castle

It's supposed to rain most of the day tomorrow so we'll spend it hunting down "Quiet Man" film locations I think.