What Happened to The Quiet Man Cottage?
For fans of The Quiet Man, it’s the quintessential Irish movie location. White O’Morn cottage, the thatched rural Irish idyll to which Sean Thornton comes home.
Visiting White O’Morn this week however, all I found was a wet pile of rubble, two walls barely recognisable as gable ends, and stones covered in moss, ferns and graffiti.
Located a couple of hundred yards outside Maam, down a mucky laneway that dips through the babbling Failmore River, the cottage lies on private land. Ash trees have sprouted in the old living rooms, brambles are bursting through the walls, and curious cattle look on.
The cottage is owned by American businessman Gregory Ebbitt, who reportedly bought it at auction almost 30 years ago. Any plans to restore the famous building have not come to pass. This week, Ebbitt was said to be living in California, and White O’Morn was barely recognisable.
From the moment John Wayne first sits on Leam Bridge, through to the smouldering kiss he shares with Maureen O’Hara, the cottage plays a key role in the movie.
Paddy Rock, who runs The Inisfree Experience, a tour of Quiet Man locations in Connemara, says the cottage is “the saddest part” of his tour.
“It’s gone past repair. All you could do at this stage is build a new one… it’s the one part of the jigsaw that’s missing.”
Over time, it seems unscrupulous fans and opportunistic souvenir-hunters have hastened the cottage’s demise. Stories abound of tourists making off with stones, and an American fan once sent Maureen O’Hara pictures of pilfered rocks in her living room.
In 2004, O’Hara dubbed the cottage “a national disgrace.” The Glengarriff-based actor, who played Mary Kate Danagher in the movie, revealed that John Wayne called her before he died in 1979 to say he was coming over “to kick up holy murder about it.”
Wayne never made it. And 60 years after the film was made, the stasis continues. This week, the tourist office in Cong told me: “It’s privately owned, so nobody can touch it.”
Paddy Rock says he was one of a number of locals who met Gregory Ebbitt at Milwaukee’s IrishFest a couple of years ago. “We gave him every opportunity to do something,” he says. Grant aid has also been hinted at. “But he never took it up.”
In the light of Tourism Ireland’s recent targeting of Irish diaspora in the US, encouraging journeys like that made by Sean Thornton in the movie, it seems a missed opportunity.
In reality, however, it’s hard to say whether the cost of restoring the cottage would be recouped. From the Quiet Man Bridge to Ashford Castle and the recently opened Pat Cohan’s bar, there is no shortage of movie locations in the area for fans to visit.
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