The Myth of Hidden Ireland: The Corrosive Effect of Place in The Quiet Man

In households across the United States, the mere mention of John Ford's 1952 film The Quiet Man can have an unnerving effect upon an individual's equanimity. This is particularly true for many Irish Americans of the baby boom era who remember growing up under its influence. Quite simply, that movie has become the embodiment of all that was maudlin, manipulative, and embarrassing about the culture of their forebears, both in this country and in Ireland. At first glance, one can find ample evidence in scene after scene of The Quiet Man to reinforce this view. Like other Ford films from the era, it calls to mind the swaggering optimism of a culture still proud of the part that it played in the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II and still free of any trace of self-doubt that might have curbed the arrogance of an unquestioned belief in the American way of doing things. More particularly, and with far more serious consequences, for the casual viewer The Quiet Man seems to play upon all of the simplistic images of Irish life and character that xenophobic Yankee isolationists and sentimental expatriates had alternately disdained and celebrated in print, on the stage, and ultimately, in electronic media from the mid-nineteenth century onward.

Without going so far as to condemn the film as a premeditated slander of Irish culture, many viewers have felt a pronounced discomfort at what they saw as its patronizing and stereotypical renditions of the Irish culture and character, which infantalizes and oversimplifies the rhythm and routines of Irish life. Scene after scene dwells upon the country as pure and unspoiled by twentieth-century industrialism, but that loving depiction cannot avoid overtones of backwardness and provincialism. The Irish people alternately appear as quaint in their customs, charming in their belligerence, and unreformable in their alcoholic sloth. Confronted by these representations, many viewers have come to see The Quiet Man as little more than a manipulative, sentimental story, constructed along the predictable lines of a stock Hollywood plot.¹

For those inclined to pigeonhole the film in this fashion, the figure of John Ford as the picture's director seems to establish the validity of this view. By the time that he made The Quiet Man, Ford had already acquired the well-deserved reputation as the creator of cinematically distinguished but unapologetically chauvinistic depictions of American life. Though some might object to the perspective, few would question the effectiveness of Ford's celebration of the steadfast valor, the upright probity, and the tenacious loyalty displayed by the white Americans who participated in the subjugation of the savage west summed up in his renowned cavalry trilogy—Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), and Rio Grande (1950). Nonetheless, the achievements of his previous work make Ford all the more susceptible to charges that The Quiet Man owes its success to over-simplification and sentimentalism.

John Wayne's role as the film's star offers evidence that only confirms these opinions. Wayne—who was featured in the three cavalry films mentioned above and in many other Ford productions as well—had established an unvarying screen personality well before participating in The Quiet Man, and in the 1952 film he does not depart from that persona. As the central figure in The Quiet Man, Wayne projects in the role of Sean Thornton the same strengths and weaknesses that he created in characters like the Ringo Kid (Stagecoach), Sergeant Stryker (The Sands of Iwo Jima), and Rusty Ryan (They Were Expendable). In fact, by this point in his career, one could argue that, no matter what the role, he was always playing John Wayne: a man of direct action, simple values, uncompromising rectitude, and rugged independence. ² Thus, when viewers encounter Ford and Wayne working together, many will readily assume...