In Search of Ryan’s Daughter

Tralee Golf Club, designed by the late, great, Arnold Palmer, is situated in County Kerry on the west cost of Ireland.

It’s a most spectacular stretch of links golf, the verdant dunes meeting the Atlantic coastline along a fringed stretch of eternally wide open white beaches.

Walking the course for the first time a few months ago, I sensed an urgent familiarity calling to me: I’ve been here before, surely?

Then the penny dropped: this stunning coastal landscape was the backdrop to one of my top ten favourite films: David Lean’s 1970 classic, Ryan’s Daughter.

I had to stop and take a breath.

On these shores, the languorous, quietly spoken school teacher, Robert Mitchum, and his young bride, the tragically naïve Sarah Miles had strolled along as Rosy Ryan (Sarah’s character) came to terms with the constrictions of her too hastily conceived marriage.

Ryan’s Daughter is a complex film that traverses a broad landscape: love story, political struggle, betrayal, rite of passage – it explores the innocence of a small town affair measured against the judgemental lens of a cynical world with historically entrenched attitudes.

Poor Sarah Miles, the eponymous Ryan’s Daughter, didn’t stand a chance. Fate had her doomed from the moment she set eyes on the broken shell of a man, the PTSD affected English soldier, Captain Randolph Doryan.