# "THE QUIET MAN" Was Pre-WWII Ireland Really Like That? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 28, 2005, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quiet-man-was-pre-wwii-ireland-really-like-that/296519 "2005-03-28T00:06:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2005, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quiet-man-was-pre-wwii-ireland-really-like-that/296519/1 "2005-03-28T00:06:33Z")
I’ve been watching this old movie on AMC. It is a pretty strange flick, because it was based on a very short story…somehow, Hollywood managed to turn it into a full-length film. But anyway, the depictions of Ireland are schmaltzy and charming! Was pre war Ireland really like this? Green fields, Irish farmers dressed in suits spending all day at the pub? Parish priests fishing while dressedup in suits? Elderly ladies staying home and cooking all day? Oh, and Barry Fitzgerald (who looked like a leprechaun in a bowler hat). Was this movie a hit? ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2005, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quiet-man-was-pre-wwii-ireland-really-like-that/296519/2 "2005-03-28T00:49:39Z")
No, this is a fantasy Ireland… and possibly, pre-WWI. It’s a wonderful fantasy, but fantasy it is. (I love the movie.) ---
**Author:** ![UntouchedTakeaway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d78d45/32.png) [@UntouchedTakeaway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UntouchedTakeaway)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2005, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quiet-man-was-pre-wwii-ireland-really-like-that/296519/3 "2005-03-28T00:50:48Z")
If it wasn’t, I don’t want to know. My favorite movie. VCNJ~ ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2005, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quiet-man-was-pre-wwii-ireland-really-like-that/296519/4 "2005-03-28T01:57:07Z")
I was born in New York, but all four of my grandparents were born in Ireland. Like most Irish-Americans, I’ve always loved the movie, even though I acknowledge its essential corniness. But my relatives in Ireland either detest it or just shrug it off in amusement as “a tourist’s movie.” Certainly, nobody in Ireland takes it seriously. At best, they regard it as overly sentimentalized blarney, like most Hollywood depictions of Ireland. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2005, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quiet-man-was-pre-wwii-ireland-really-like-that/296519/5 "2005-03-28T02:46:18Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Certainly, nobody in Ireland takes it seriously. Except for the west coast folks in the vicinity of the filming. Lotsa photos of John Wayne up in pubs (still!) and plaques on beaches saying “QUIET MAN shot here!” ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2005, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quiet-man-was-pre-wwii-ireland-really-like-that/296519/6 "2005-03-28T03:00:57Z")
ralph124c writes: \> Green fields, Irish farmers dressed in suits spending all day at the pub? Parish \> priests fishing while dressedup in suits? Elderly ladies staying home and \> cooking all day? You are aware, aren’t you, that some of this was formerly more common everywhere, including in the U.S.? Look at photographs from 1920’s through 1940’s U.S. and see how much more common wearing suits in what we don’t think of as formal circumstances today was. Women used to spend much more time cooking than today (including doing their own bread-baking). Furthermore, now and then it was always more the case that the pub was the primary social center in Ireland (and in the U.K.), while this wasn’t and isn’t the case in the U.S. \> But anyway, the depictions of Ireland are schmaltzy and charming! Schmaltzy and charming situations are part of life, just as cynical and disgusting situations are part of life. Film noir is as much a stereotyped view of life as schmaltzy movies are. Life was never all bad or all good. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2005, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quiet-man-was-pre-wwii-ireland-really-like-that/296519/7 "2005-03-28T03:59:20Z")
> [@Wendell Wagner](#): > > Life was never all bad or all good. No need to be so _reasonable_ about it. ---
**Author:** ![CBCD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@CBCD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CBCD)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2005, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quiet-man-was-pre-wwii-ireland-really-like-that/296519/8 "2005-03-28T11:43:26Z")
The question I’d ask about The Quiet Man is this. Was there ever a woman as beautiful as **Mary Kate Danaher**? I have never seen a woman look better than \*\*Maureen O’Hara \*\* looks in The Quiet Man. Jaw-dropping, eye-popping beautiful. To quote Sean Thorton, “Is she for real?” ---
**Author:** ![Marlitharn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/779978/32.png) [@Marlitharn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlitharn)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2005, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quiet-man-was-pre-wwii-ireland-really-like-that/296519/9 "2005-03-28T12:23:47Z")
I love this movie. I find it impetuous and Homeric. 😃 It’s kind of like a Gaellic Mayberry, isn’t it? A small village, everyone knows everyone else and they all get happily involved in minding everybody else’s business, and at the end they all - even the priests - band together so Reverand Snuffy doesn’t have to move to a different parish. “Now when they come through, I want you all to cheer like Protestants!” ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2005, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quiet-man-was-pre-wwii-ireland-really-like-that/296519/10 "2005-03-28T15:55:09Z")
Did John Wayne ever do a better bit of acting than in this movie? Surely it’s the high point of his career. I remember a story told about Wayne and O’Hara; they were in a scene together, and she was having a bit of trouble with it. “It’s your scene, Maureen; take it,” John said, “…if you can.” ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2005, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quiet-man-was-pre-wwii-ireland-really-like-that/296519/11 "2005-03-31T06:10:46Z")
> [@Ukulele Ike](#): > > Except for the west coast folks in the vicinity of the filming. Lotsa photos of John Wayne up in pubs (still!) and plaques on beaches saying “QUIET MAN shot here!” Sure, but to a large extent, that’s probably for the benefit of the American tourists! ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2005, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quiet-man-was-pre-wwii-ireland-really-like-that/296519/12 "2005-03-31T11:02:53Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Was pre war Ireland really like this? Green fields, Irish farmers dressed in suits spending all day at the pub? Parish priests fishing while dressedup in suits? Elderly ladies staying home and cooking all day? > Oh, and Barry Fitzgerald (who looked like a leprechaun in a bowler hat). > Was this movie a hit? We’ve always had green fields. People in the past didn’t have access to casual clothes like we do. They had one or two sets of clothes and that was it. Ireland would have been a very poor place back then. Nearly all the work would have been manual. A lot of time was and is spent in pubs. They are the social center of villages and cities. Nearly every aspect of social life has drink related to it in some way or another. Woman had it very hard back in the day. Lots of kids and lots of backbreaking work. There lot was hinted at in the film. “Would you like a nice stick to beat the young lady with”. A lot of women had to deal with drunk angry frustrated aggressive men and remember there was no divorce and a culture very much centered around staying with the husband no matter what. Rural Ireland was a mixture of natural beauty and brutal working conditions. The majority of people were very poor with very little means of escape. The poverty and somewhat oppressive regimes of the past gelled communities together as only hardship can do but it wasn’t anything like _The Quiet Man_ I’m afraid. Now, _Darby O’Gill and the Little People_? That’s almost a documentary 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Ponster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponster/32/17081_2.png) [@Ponster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponster)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2005, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quiet-man-was-pre-wwii-ireland-really-like-that/296519/13 "2005-03-31T11:48:12Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > I’ve been watching this old movie on AMC. It is a pretty strange flick, because it was based on a very short story…somehow, Hollywood managed to turn it into a full-length film. But anyway, the depictions of Ireland are schmaltzy and charming! Was pre war Ireland really like this? Green fields, Irish farmers dressed in suits spending all day at the pub? Parish priests fishing while dressedup in suits? Elderly ladies staying home and cooking all day? > Oh, and Barry Fitzgerald (who looked like a leprechaun in a bowler hat). > Was this movie a hit? Well we still have the green fields but poor planning has led to all sorts of houses being built pretty much anywhere with little respect for the surrounding area. In my local a lot of the older farmers (80+) will still arrive at 6 and order a shot of whiskey and a bottle of Guinness, dressed in their suit just like in the movie but with a lot less romance. Havn’t seen a priest fish for some time though 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![curly\_chick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ba0ec/32.png) [@curly\_chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curly_chick)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2005, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quiet-man-was-pre-wwii-ireland-really-like-that/296519/14 "2005-03-31T12:03:49Z")
> [@Marlitharn](#): > > A small village, everyone knows everyone else and they all get happily involved in minding everybody else’s business, and at the end they all - even the priests - band together so Reverand Snuffy doesn’t have to move to a different parish. “Now when they come through, I want you all to cheer like Protestants!” My Dad always laughs his socks off at that bit. He was a young man in 1950s rural Ireland and he said that where he came from, Protestants were so thin on the ground that he never knowingly met one until he left the country. He also said that at that time, the notion was that anyone who wasn’t a Cathiolic was a big old evil heathen and was up to no good by definition and there’d be no way any proper Irish person would ever cheer for heathens. I love the bit where Victor McLaglan comes in and says “God bless all in this house” and MO’H barks at him “Wipe your feet” It really tickles me, for some inexplicable reason, that does.