Ryan's Daughter: Dingle Peninsula Film Locations

Ryan's Daughter is set in Kirrary, an isolated village on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, where Rosy, the publican's only daughter, falls in love with the schoolmaster Charles Shaughnessy; they marry and settle in the schoolhouse. Kirrary is invented, but the film was partly shot near Dún Chaoin, with scenes at Ceathrú (Caharhoo) in Dunquin. The production, and the tourism that followed, largely revived the town's struggling economy.

Location precision: The pin marks Dunquin village; the exact fields at Ceathrú are not pinned.

Inch Strand is a spit 5 km long, and it was among the film's shooting locations on the peninsula. In the story Charles takes his schoolchildren to the beach, where he notices Doryan's telltale footprints, accompanied by a woman's, in the sand. Today the beach is part of the Special Area of Conservation at Castlemaine Harbour.

Visitor guidance: A public beach on the Dingle Peninsula; check weather and tides before walking far.

Coumeenoole Bay lies on Slea Head, on the Dingle Peninsula, and is now a tourist destination. In the film's storm night of January 1918, IRB leader Tim O'Leary and his men seek help for a shipment of German arms, and the entire village turns out to help the rebels. Wikipedia says scenes were shot at Coumeenoole, and that director David Lean had to wait a year for a suitably dramatic storm.

Location precision: The film's beach scenes mix several coasts, so the pin marks the bay named as a location rather than one scene.

Visitor guidance: A well-known viewpoint and beach on Slea Head, on the R559 road east to Dingle.

Not every beach in Ryan's Daughter is Irish. Because of poor weather in Kerry, many of the film's beach scenes were shot at Arniston in South Africa, and they are easily identified by the white sand of the nearby beach. The production was otherwise filmed largely on the Dingle Peninsula, so the Western Cape quietly stands in for the Kerry shore.

Location precision: Arniston is where many beach scenes were shot; the pin marks the village, not one beach.

Late in the story, Michael leads Doryan to a cache of arms, including dynamite, that was not recovered after the storm, and Doryan kills himself by detonating the explosives. The shipwreck where that scene was filmed is the SS Kakapo, which lies just south of Cape Town — a long way from the Kerry coast of the story.

Location precision: The source places the wreck only 'just south of Cape Town', so this stop is left unpinned.