LEGACY OF `QUIET MAN' LIVES ON IN IRELAND.

Byline: Gary A. Warner Orange County Register

John Wayne is getting a museum in his honor out in the wild, wild west.

Wild west of Ireland, that is.

The tiny village of Cong in County Mayo has lovingly re-created the home of one of the Duke's most famous characters - the drinking, brawling, loving Sean ``Trooper'' Thornton in John Ford's 1952 film classic, ``The Quiet Man.''

``For a lot of Irish, John Wayne is America, and I guess for a lot of Americans, `The Quiet Man' is Ireland,'' said Joanne Gibbons, owner of the Quiet Man Coffee Shop.

The Quiet Man Heritage Cottage, which opened in mid-July, is a simple two-room re-creation of Trooper Thornton's beloved ``White-o-morn'' cottage in Inisfree, where he woos and weds Maureen O'Hara. The Republic of Ireland has designated it an Irish Heritage Center, putting Wayne's museum on a par with sites telling the story of the Irish Republican movement, emigration to the New World, whiskey distilling and lace-making.

``Upstairs we also have exhibits on the archeology and history of the Cong area,'' said Lisa Collins, who is running the center, built with $500,000 in private donations.

Locals are hoping the center will lure more tourists such as Kevin Doyle, 59, of New South Wales, Australia, who said Cong was at the top of his list of places to visit on his trip to Ireland.

``I am a huge, huge John Wayne fan,'' he said. ``I've waited 20 years to come here and see all the sights. I've seen `The Quiet Man' maybe 20-odd times, and it never gets old.''

For those who missed it, ``The Quiet Man'' stars Wayne as Sean ``Trooper'' Thornton, an Irish-American boxer returning to his roots after killing a man in the ring. He returns to the Irish village where he was born in hopes of living on his ancestral lands and forgetting his past. But his move angers neighbor Victor McLaglen, who coveted the land for himself. To make matters worse, Wayne falls for McLaglen's sister, played by Maureen O'Hara. Ward Bond as the parish priest and Barry Fitzgerald as a whiskey-loving local round out the cast.

``The Quiet Man'' is among the top video rentals in Ireland, and it's downright impossible to avoid in Cong. Ashford Castle, now a $400-per-night luxury hotel, shows it every night at 5.

Wayne's famous fight scene with McLaglen is often blaring over the bar serving Guinness Stout beer and Jameson's whiskey at Dannagher's Hotel, named after McLaglen's character.

There's a walking tour of the village of Cong that takes visitors past many of the sights in the movie, including Cohan's pub, the countryside where the couple courted, and the stone bridge, site of the film's climactic fistfight.

Cong remains largely unchanged since the filming; it's one of Ireland's prettiest and greenest corners.

There's still the ruined Augustinian abbey and Ashford Castle, and everywhere there are miles of rivers, meadows and forests of the brightest green. The area is also well known as one of the top hunting and fishing spots in Ireland. Coming into town, there's the old stone bridge where Wayne and O'Hara courted, and the narrow main street with its colorful shops.

The street ends at Cohan's Bar, scene of much of the drinking and fighting in the film. Cohan's has changed little - it wasn't a bar then and isn't now. It's a curio shop - the bar interiors were all filmed in Hollywood.

Many of the village's older folks worked as extras in the film and still fondly remember the experience, said Sean Gibbons, who runs the Quiet Man cafe. His father played a brawling townsman in the movie. During the frequent pushing, shoving and brawling called for in the film, old scores between townsfolk were hashed out under the guise of ``acting,'' Gibbons said.

Stories of the film are still swapped at Ryan's pub, one of three in town and the most popular with local fishermen.

``There's one gentleman who was the fish on the end of Ward Bond's line when Maureen O'Hara comes to the riverbank to tell him in Gaelic that her marriage to John Wayne hasn't been consummated yet,'' Gibbons said. ``You don't actually see the fish - the gentleman was off-screen and on cue he had to tug on the fishing line so Ward Bond would react. Still, he's proud and has told that story a hundred times if he's told it once.''

While villagers hope the new Wayne museum will be a big draw, they're content if it's not.

``Whether Americans come here by the hundreds or thousands, they'll still find the beauty John Ford found,'' Joanne Gibbons said. ``Because this is a little bit of heaven on Earth.''

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Photo

Photo: John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara pose in ``The Quiet Ma n'' setting outside Cong, Ireland.