Tourists flock to see John Ford's Ireland, but to keep them coming we will need to update our image, writes Kate Holmquist
You can see it in their eyes when they visit Dingle, Mayo, Avoca and Limerick, a kind of glow of recognition. They've been seeing images of "Ireland" on the TV and cinema over the years - now it's there in the flesh in front of them.
If you suspend your cynicism and see Ireland through tourists' eyes, it's a place of dreams and fantasy created by film-makers. The Irish Film Board, in co-operation with Tourism Ireland, is only too willing to encourage this view. Film and TV-related tourism brings €250 million into the economy annually, according to Fáilte Ireland, and there is a potential for far more.
An evocative film yields tourism dollars for many decades, its shelf-life extended indefinitely through DVDs and TV cable channels. This year, American tourists are still putting Cong, Co Mayo on their itinerary because they've seen the 56-year-old film, The Quiet Man, a romantic comedy featuring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara directed by John Ford in 1952.
Mary Flynn Conway, of the travel agency Celtic Journeys in St Paul, Minnesota, says Co Kerry is a favoured destination this year because David Lean's romantic Ryan's Daughter (1970) has just been released on DVD in the US. The image of Sarah Miles as Rosy Ryan Shaughnessy on horseback on a Co Kerry beach is still inspiring tourists to see it for themselves.
"Just recently someone asked if I knew which locations were used for the movie Tristan & Isolde as it looked so beautiful they would like to visit. I have also had clients request stays in Roundstone because of The Matchmaker. So yes [ films] definitely have quite an influence."
There is sometimes confusion over whether a particular Irish-themed film was actually made in Ireland. "Unfortunately when a movie, such as Waking Ned, is released that is supposed to be an 'Irish' movie, but is made somewhere else people are quite disappointed when they find out [ the location] is not where they expected," Conway adds.
It's not just the big screen that woos tourists here. The TV series Ballykissangel transformed Avoca, Co Wicklow from rural hideaway to tourist destination. They're still coming, five years after BBC ended the series. And a four-DVD box-set of Ballykissangel was released this year, which is good news for the bus-tour business to Avoca.
Braveheart (1994) has drawn tourists to Trim Castle, Co Meath, although the Scottish Tourist Board has made a meal of it, increasing visitor revenue to Scotland's Stirling Castle by 25 per cent, as a result of the film. The Excalibur trail in Co Wicklow is still being used to entice tourists to scenic vistas, even though John Boorman's film was made 25 years ago.
But The Wind that Shakes the Barley, winner of top honours at the Cannes Film Festival and which has grossed more than €3 million at the Irish box office, is unlikely to lure US tourists to west Cork because it hasn't yet entered their consciousness. Conway says people in her part of the American mid-west haven't seen it.
However, Naoise Barry, film commissioner with the Irish Film Board, says: "Irish cinema has a huge impact on Ireland's tourism industry. A film such as The Wind that Shakes the Barley will be seen by millions around the world for years to come. Ireland's rural landscape has enormous appeal to film-maker and tourist alike."
Minimal US distribution of this "art" film, despite its critical success, won't make it one of the great tourism draws, predicts Noelle O'Connor, lecturer in tourism and marketing at Waterford Institute of Technology. O'Connor has researched the impact of film on tourism around the world.
The Wind that Shakes the Barley, with its depiction of family strife and political violence, lacks the pleasant associations of a film such as The Quiet Man and so is unlikely to attract "destination" tourists, she thinks. Likewise, Angela's Ashes, filmed in Limerick, is too down-beat to motivate people to visit Limerick, in her view.
Louise Ryan, marketing and communications manager with the Irish Film Board, disagrees: "I loved Angela's Ashes. I do think it encourages people to visit Limerick."
Film-induced tourism is big business internationally. The most recent example was the enormous impact of the Lord of the Rings trilogy on New Zealand tourism. The Irish Film Board never considers a film's tourism potential when it is assessing film proposals; but it does promote Ireland as a film location for international film and television production. This means that movies that ostensibly take place in other countries can use Ireland as a stand-in. Bath, for example, is being recreated with Dublin settings for Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. Kitchen, about the weird world of chefs in New York, is being filmed in Cabra, in Dublin, but is unlikely to draw tourists there.
Northern Ireland has capitalised on this dual-identity issue with CS Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia. Although it wasn't filmed there, it has strong enough connections to enable the creation of a tourist trail. The Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB) has branded Northern Ireland as the inspiration for the mythical land of Narnia, even though New Zealand was the eventual choice of film location.
The NITB is making the most out of the fact that Lewis returned to his nativeNorthern Ireland on many holidays and that the landscape, from the Mourne Mountains in the south-east to Dunluce Castle on the north Antrim coast, is said to have inspired him create the magical land of Narnia.
Noelle O'Connor says there was no prior planning by the NITB to use Narnia to tap into movie-induced tourism and no funding was set aside in advance. The board managed to re-divert £20,000 (€29,260) when the potential of the film for Northern tourism became apparent. Half of this went towards printing a brochure on CS Lewis and the rest into public relations to promote the link.
A CS Lewis Trail has been created in Belfast and includes nine city locations, each with a Lewis association.
"A map featuring the trail has also been produced for tourists," says O'Connor. "Although not strictly a movie map [ such as those produced and harnessed so successfully by VisitBritain] it has been driven by the film interest and as such is the first step towards the concept of movie maps and movie trails in Ireland with more vision and potential than has happened up until now."
Research shows that what Ireland needs in order to attract more tourists is a type of Notting Hill set in, say, Dublin's Ailesbury Road. Or maybe a new version of The Quiet Man set in a call-centre just outside Navan - who knows?
Currently, Ireland is acting as a stand-in for New York, England and even France on occasion.
The contemporary film that makes Ireland a must-see destination for a new generation of film-goers is yet to be made.