Quiet Man Look-a-likes

As part of the Fiftieth Anniversary Celebrations to mark this great milestone in the history of film making it was decide to do a Nation wide search for a Maureen O Hara Look-a-like ” This search was done in association with The Sunday World (one of our National papers) and The Quiet Man Movie Club The search was conducted over a three-month period with hundreds of photos sent to us from all corners of Ireland

These photos were looked at by an independent panel before the final twenty were selected and flown to Galway courtesy of Aer Arran Express On arrival in Galway they were taken on a location tour for the day and while on tour were photographed and filmed at the different locations where the film was shot. Arriving at Ashford Castle the look-a-likes were met by a film crew from TV 3 (one of our National TV Stations) and were treated to afternoon tea and a tour of the castle.

Back in Galway that night they were guests of the Forster Court Hotel where they were to meet with a panel of Judges who would whittle the group down to a final six, who would attend the Quiet Man Celebration Ball at the Ross Lake Hotel in September The panel was headed up by the late Etta Vaughan (a stand in for Maureen O Hara) and were announced live on TV3 the following morning from Eyre Square Galway.

The picture shows our two look-a-likes 
Doreen Byrne from Dublin and Peter Mc Intyre from Scotland

In order to celebrate the release of the film (1952) we decided that in September of 2002 we should have the film screened in Dublin due to the fact that Maureen O Hara was originally from the Capital City and so in association with the Irish Film Centre in Dublin we screened the movie on the big screen there and this was repeated in Galway two weeks later in association with the Omniplex Cinema.

However we could not allow our Mary Kate to go to these screenings alone, so we set out to find her a Sean Thornton (John Wayne) look-a-like However this time we spread our search to England/Scotland, and Wales as well as Ireland again in the company of the Sunday World and held our final selection process in The Rathmines Inn in Dublin which has a snug dedicated to the Quiet Man and is a meeting place for our East Coast Branch of the Quiet Man Movie Club. It was there that Peter Mc Intyre from Scotland was selected as our man to accompany Mary Kate to the screenings We do hope that we made a good choice but would welcome your comments as well to paddy@quietmanmovieclub.com  .

Taoiseach meets Mary Kate


LTR : Gus Martin, Bertie Ahearn, Doreen Byrne, Billy Gibbons, Paddy Rock