Connemara in Film

Photo by Gaynor's, The Field Bar

The Field is a 1990 Irish drama film starring Richard Harris and John Hurt and adapted from a 1965 play of the same name. The film is set in the early 1930s and was shot almost entirely in the Connemara village of Leenaun. The pub there, Gaynor’s Bar, has a lovely painted sign commemorating this. Other locations in the film include Thoor Ballylee, the one-time home of poet W.B. Yeats.

The comedy The Quiet Man, made in 1952 by John Ford, starred John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara and was set in the Irish countryside. The film employed many actors from the Irish theatre and extras from the Irish countryside, and it is one of the few Hollywood movies in which the Irish language can be heard. All of the outdoor scenes were shot on location in Ireland in County Mayo and County Galway. 

And here's an interesting fact: Roger Corman had a production studio in western Ireland because (surprise, surprise) it was cheap. He produced 20 movies there over five years. And you can learn all about it in a documentary aptly titled "It Came From Connemara". 

There was a 1990 French film titled "Connemara" that's an historical adventure and apparently not very good and yet another French film "Connemara" released this year- and that's all I know about that.