Once you round Slea Head on Kerry's Dingle Peninsula, you're confronted by the wild and dramatic edge of western Europe and the heart of Ryan's Daughter country. As soon as you see this beautiful and tempestuous coastline, you know precisely what one of the soldiers in the film means when he remarks that "There's some nice walks around here."
With broad-backed mountains rushing down to the Atlantic to be greeted by swells rolling across 3,000 miles of deep blue ocean, and mist-shrouded offshore islands rising out of the deep like frail final outliers of the European continent, this is a landscape rich in atmosphere, a landscape that etches itself on your memory. Once seen, never forgotten.
However, as with most movies, Ryan's Daughter was shot with a cavalier attitude to geographical exactitude, and although the majority of the filming took place around the Dingle Peninsula, individual spots are not always as close together as the film would have you believe. So, when I arrived here to do a "Ryan's Daughter Walk", it wasn't as easy as I first thought.
For a start, there's surprisingly little information available locally about the film or the locations that were used, especially when you consider that the money it brought into the region transformed the economy and the local lifestyle by introducing the Dingle Peninsula to a wide audience.
The best source of information that I came across was local raconteur and outdoorsman, TP O'Conchuir, who was around when the film was shot and worked with the cast and crew. He pointed on a map to the various spots where filming had taken place - these included Dunquin Harbour (where the IRA and villagers bring ashore illicit guns and ammunition in the film); Coumeenoole Bay (where a recent Volkswagen advert featuring pseudo surfers was also shot); and 12 miles down the coast to the east, Inch Strand, that glorious golden stretch of beach that is perhaps the location most associated with the film.
Joining all these together in one walk would be possible by following the Dingle Way, but this is a very mixed bag. On the one hand, it takes you through the town of Dingle, which is no bad thing since this is a fine settlement with an admirable selection of bars and the most gregarious locals, and it also ushers you along the pretty crescent of Ventry Bay before slogging west out to Slea Head.
However, at the very point where the scenery becomes truly breathtaking, so does the walk, but for all the wrong reasons. It follows the narrow roads through much of Ryan's Daughter territory to the north of Slea Head, which are jammed with fume-pumping cars and coaches.
And if you're expecting the landscape to look as it did when director David Lean came out here with a cast that included Robert Mitchum, Trevor Howard, Sarah Miles and John Mills, you'll be disappointed, for the glorious western tip of the Dingle Peninsula has changed markedly since then. The scrubby fields edging up towards the dank brown uplands are now dotted with that key indicator of the success of the Irish economy, the ranch-style bungalow. Where once there were a only few picturesque but damp and uncomfortable cottages, there are now scores of rectangular yellow and magnolia dwellings dotted higgledy-piggledy across the landscape.
However, even the dismal planning laws that have allowed this slur on the scenery can't detract from the unique, wild beauty of the place. And, when all's said and done, people do have a right to comfortable homes, whatever the tourists might think; and it could be worse - The Blasket Centre, set in the heart of all this and close to the schoolhouse used in Ryan's Daughter looks more like a large agricultural outbuilding than a repository of all things Blasket. Fortunately, the inside of this shrine to the nearby Great Blasket island is a vast improvement on the exterior.
This combination of piecemeal development and far-from-ideal walking routes comes as something of a disappointment, and I really couldn't bring myself to tramp along metalled roads when I could see vast tracts of wild country to the north-east awaiting discovery. So the decision was made to check out the movie locations an alternative way - with a view from above and from a distance.
Thus it was that I found myself slogging up the steep shoulder of 763m Masatiompan above the north shore of the Dingle Peninsula in fitful sunshine. To my right was 952m Brandon Mountain; to my left were ever more precipitous sea cliffs, and every time I glanced back over my shoulder I had magnificent views over Smerwick Harbour and out towards Great Blasket island. And, according to the locals, if I could have climbed just a little higher, I'd have seen the Empire State Building, too.
This area is known by Dingle residents as "Back West", and, unlike Slea Head, is free of wide-bodied coaches carrying American tourists desperate to venerate all things Irish. Occasionally, a fellow walker may tread this way, the odd sheep may amble across your path, and cloud shadows will chase you up the hillside, but here it's easy to imagine how the Dingle Peninsula would have looked before Hollywood came to town.
The road to this secluded tract of moorland runs north from Dingle, eventually petering out in a slightly incongruous new car park beyond a clutter of farmhouses and cottages, and when I pulled up on a bright Sunday afternoon in May, I had it to myself.
Brandon Mountain had been my intended destination, but the summit remained stubbornly wreathed in mist, so there seemed little point in going up there. There is one minor inconvenience to hiking my chosen alternative route over Masatiompan and down to Brandon Bay, though, as you require a taxi or shuttle bus to get back to your car.
But once you get high up on the cliffs, this logistical hassle pales into insignificance, as do the blobs and splotches of new development on the flatter lands far below. It's like standing on the bow of a huge liner heading west across the Atlantic, the brilliant blue waters and dazzling white breakers seemingly rushing past on the ocean breeze.
The area around Slea Head is famed for its beehive huts and cave dwellings used by medieval pilgrims, but these days you really need to get up into wilds such as this to get a feel for the isolation and spiritual harmony with nature that these mendicants were searching for locally.
I was bundled over the pass by what lower down had been a stiff breeze, but now was converted into a howling gale as it was funnelled between the peaks either side. I quickly scurried lower to get out of the blast and enjoy the view down to Brandon Bay, Tralee and Kerry Head. The height, the sheer cliffs, the clean, washed blue of the sea and sky put me in mind of some of the spectacular viewpoints on Lanzarote, except better, because the brilliant green of the fields way below added a wash of colour that's missing in the Canaries.
Atop these wild coastal highlands, I no longer minded having to flee the Slea Head tourist trail, for if the landscape there had remained unchanged since 1970, when Mitchum partied in the pubs of Dingle, I'd have missed out on one of the most stunning coastal views in Europe. Maybe we should just hope no one chooses to shoot a Hollywood blockbuster up here.
Way to go
Getting there: Stena Line (0870 2412417, stenaline.com) sails Fishguard-Rosslare. Fares for a car and driver start from £79 each way and £10 each way for additional passengers.
Where to stay: Dingle Skellig Hotel (+66 915 0200, dingleskellig.com) has large, comfortable en-suite rooms, an excellent restaurant and superb views across Dingle Harbour, where you may see Fungie the dolphin swimming and leaping. Double rooms from €57pp low season to €115pp high season.
Where to eat: Doyle's Seafood Bar & Townhouse, John St, Dingle (+66 915 1174) has food (try the hot oysters), great staff and atmosphere. Afterwards, head over the road to the Little Bridge Pub, which has live music 360 nights a year.
Further information: Dingle Peninsula Tourism (dingle-peninsula.ie; email: dingle@eircom.net). For more specific information on outdoor activities, contact Dingle Activities Information Centre, Gallarus, Ballydavid, Tralee, Co Kerry (+66 915 5143).
Country code: 00 353.
Ferry time Fishguard-Rosslare: 3hrs.
Time difference: none.
£1 = 1.36 euros.
