How a Movie Transformed Dingle
How Ryan's Daughter forever changed the lives of men, women and children on Ireland's Dingle Peninsula
The disintegrating remains of stone stand idle and mute, and the fog that surrounds them hides the fact that they perch near the edge of a cliff overlooking Blasket Sound. The now roofless building looks like it might have been constructed in the 1700s and inhabited by generations of families, each with a story to tell.
In reality, however, the edifice was built in 1969 as a Hollywood movie set for a turgid romantic movie titled Ryan's Daughter.
The director of the movie was David Lean, who is famous for directing epics such as the Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and A Passage to India. The film's stars included Robert Mitchum, Sarah Miles, Trevor Howard and John Mills. (Mills won an Oscar as best supporting actor for his role in the movie as the village idiot.)
Critics panned Ryan's Daughter, and it became a low-water mark in Lean's career. The film, however, had a monumental and long-lasting effect on the Dingle Peninsula, which is located on the western shores of County Kerry, Ireland.
In the 1960s, much of Ireland—including County Kerry—was isolated, poor, rural and conservative. The country was still struggling to recover from the effects of British colonialism, the long fight for independence, and the Great Irish Famine (1846-1852) when one million people died of starvation and 1.8 million emigrated (mostly to the United States).
And then—in February 1969—life on the Dingle Peninsula suddenly changed forever.
To film Ryan’s Daughter, David Lean brought hundreds of movie people to the area, and they stayed for two years. According to the Irish Examiner:
When the front-runners of the Ryan’s Daughter film cavalcade arrived in Dingle in the early weeks of 1969, Ireland was a very different place.
The average industrial wage was £19 ($46*) a week, the pint of plain was 20 pence, and houses anywhere could be picked up for well under £5000 ($12,000). Into this still inward-looking and deeply conservative country came Robert Mitchum, Sarah Miles, Trevor Howard and hundreds of movie people — transforming Dingle into an offshoot of Hollywood for two tumultuous years.
A crew of 200 local craftspeople was hired to construct a new village in Dingle Town, with buildings made from stone. A stone schoolhouse overlooking Blasket Sound was also constructed near the village of Dunquin.
According to the Irish Examiner, skilled laborers—carpenters, electricians, plumbers—suddenly started earning up to £50 ($120) a week and major movie extras earned up to £100 ($240) a week. Local children were hired to act as students in the schoolhouse and received £2 ($4.80) a day and £3 ($7.20) on Sunday for their efforts. Many people also rented out their houses, and pubs, restaurants and shops overflowed with customers.
Stories abound about the lead actors, who arrived with their out-sized egos, hard drinking habits and cash.
On the wet days — and there were many of those — Dingle got its first glimpse of what the ‘hellraiser’ tag really meant as Robert Mitchum, Trevor Howard, and Leo McKern were allowed full rein in a private fiefdom far from the prying camera lenses of London or LA. This was the era when tweeting was only found on the beaks of birds. Drinking sessions in Kruger’s and Ashe’s, afternoon delights with female ‘consultants’ flown over from New York, and Bentleys racing down rutted boreens** where sheep normally grazed.
Altogether, the movie added £3 million ($7,200,00) to the local economy. Which means that the locals finally had the money to build in-door bathrooms in their homes—the renovation of buildings rose a thousand-fold—and the sale of luxury goods boomed.
The movie also turned Dingle Town into a tourist mecca because people wanted to experience the glorious scenery for themselves.
Today Ireland is a prosperous, stable and progressive country, as well as an integral member of the European Union. Dingle is a charming town of approximately 2,000 people, and tourism is its major industry. As a result, it has many excellent restaurants, numerous festivals and a high concentration of artistic shops filled with handmade pottery, weavings, woolens, jewelry, linen items and much more.
Most traces of the time when Hollywood came to town are gone. The new village that so many locals worked to build was dismantled stone by stone. The only physical evidence that remains is the slowly disintegrating schoolhouse overlooking the sea.
Notes & References
Ryan’s Daughter: The film that changed Ireland. The Irish Examiner. https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/arid-30909179.html
*I added the dollar equivalents to the pounds in the Irish Examiner quotations using figures from 1969.
**A “boreen” is a narrow, one-lane country road.
To find the Ryan’s Daughter schoolhouse, take the Slea Head Drive from Dingle Town toward the village of Dunquin (Dún Chaoin). Look for signs (on the left side of the road) for the Great Blasket Centre Museum and leave your car in the museum’s parking lot. (The Great Blasket Centre is a fascinating museum that is well worth the visit itself. It also has a restaurant that serves delicious food, including freshly baked scones, sandwiches, soups and more.)
Take the marked path that heads past the museum towards the sea and follow it through a couple of farmer’s fields. The route is mostly flat and will take you about 15 minutes to reach the schoolhouse.
What a shock it must have been to the local community, although of course they would have welcomed the sudden influx of money. It would be interesting to see photographs of that time and of the people who were there. But two years on location, wow! I wonder why?
How interesting, Clarice! Thanks for a great post along w/ your signature amazing photos. Love to hear background stories.