Place, Peripherality, and Play
Reflections on Film Tourism in Ireland
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10194841 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Neil O’boyle (0000-0002-3865-2579, corresponding author), Neil O'Boyle |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 52 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 1355-1371 |
| Publication date | 2019-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Popular Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-3840 • E-ISSN: 1540-5931 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/jpcu.12860 |
| OpenAlex | W2997173396 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 11 |
Place, Peripherality, and Play: Reflections on Film Tourism in IrelandAs two films made or partly made in Ireland, The Quiet Man (dir.John Ford, 1952) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (dir.J. J. Abrams, 2015) offer fruitful possibilities for considering the role of film tourism in destination place-making.Though sixty-three years apart, both can be considered "cult" films-or part of a cult franchise in the case of The Force Awakens-and their respective vintages allow for an element of longitudinal analysis.Both were filmed in the West of Ireland and give prominent focus to landscape.Both involve a kind of spiritual homecoming or rebirth on the part of the estranged hero, though in Sean Thornton's (John Wayne) case he "is both native and stranger" (Gibbons, Quiet Man and Beyond 17), while Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) is more accurately a pilgrim who has "gone native."These dimensions have added to the films' exploitability as tourist promotion.The film locations of The Quiet Man continue to attract tourists through local and small-scale initiatives while the locations of The Force Awakens (and the more recent The Last Jedi) have been the focus of largescale and heavily-funded Tourism Ireland campaigns.These films contain mythic elements that both draw from and work to sustain a touristic image of Ireland as a peripheral, premodern wilderness, or what Sean Ryder calls "modernity's 'Other.'"In a promotional sense, these films might even be considered "beautiful travelogues" (Frazier 58), and their locations attract playful and imaginative participation by tourists, reflecting wider trends in advertising, marketing, and promotional culture. A Quiet Man in CongIn the ideal scenario for those engaged in destination place-making, the natural qualities of a place will activate and reinforce its storied traditions and imaginative associations.On the north of Lough Corrib, the largest lake in the Republic of Ireland, close to the border between the westerly counties of Mayo and Galway, sits the picturesque tourist town of Cong-a fine example of the happy marriage of the material and the immaterial.Cong is resplendent in natural beauty: its charming streets and cottages stand between crystal rivers and streams, surrounded by a beautiful woodland area and the ruins of a medieval abbey.Not far from the town lies Ashford Castle, a luxury hotel popular with celebrity visitors, some of whom (such as film star Pierce Brosnan and golfer Rory McIlroy) have married there.Tourists come to this part of Ireland to fish and shoot and play golf, but for those who make the trip to Cong, it is usually to visit the filming site of John Ford's iconic film, The Quiet Man.Released in 1952, The Quiet Man starred two of the most famous actors of Hollywood's Golden age, John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, and it earned John Ford his fourth Academy Award for Best Director.More importantly, for our purposes here, the film's romantic and idealized depiction of Ireland as a serene, bucolic idyll provided a promotional blueprint that is still very much in use today.Indeed, Pettitt suggests that The Quiet Man quickly became "an international advert for Ireland" (64), while MacHale argues that it remains the most popular cinematic representation of the country (Complete Guide).In the winter of 2018, I carried out ethnographic fieldwork in Cong.My primary interest during the visit was to study the physical space of the town, to photograph its streets and buildings, and to interview townspeople and tourist workers.I was less concerned about interviewing tourists, which was just as well, because my visit coincided with a violent rainstorm that drove everyone but the locals away.Despite the awful weather, I managed to speak with a variety of townspeople, most of whom claimed to interact with tourists on a daily basis and all of whom attested to the ongoing appeal of The Quiet Man. 1 A local tour operator even went so far as to tell me that he 1 Participant observation and on-site interviews were carried out in Cong during December 2019.Interviews were informal, conversational and secured using the snowball (chain-referral) method, and typically lasted between
Citation · Library science · Media studies · Political science · Sociology · Tourism · Computer Science · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research · History · Law · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |