Brenan and Ford, Saint Patrick's Day Festival in Málaga 2019

Irish people around the world: Brenan and Ford by Lola Ortega Muñoz
In collaboration with the Irish Cultural Circle of Málaga and Ámbito Cultural Málaga

FREE FILM: THE QUIET MAN

March 15, Official School of Languages Málaga, EOI, Assembly Hall, 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

March 20, Gerald Brenan House, first floor, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

The Gerald Brenan Cultural Association joins the celebration activities on the occasion of the Saint Patrick's Day festival in Málaga. Saint Patrick's Day is a cultural and religious celebration held on 17 March, the death date of Saint Patrick (c. AD 385–461), and the foremost patron saint of Ireland. The day commemorates the arrival of Christianity in Ireland and celebrates the Irish culture.

For that reason we are going to watch the movie The Quiet Man by the American-Irish director John Ford (1 February 1894,Cape Elizabeth, Maine - 31 August 1973, Los Angeles County, California). It stars John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara and Barry Fitzgerald. The story is about an Irish-born American from Pittsburgh, travels to his birthplace, Ireland, to purchase his family's former farm. The Quiet Man won the Academy Award for Best Director for John Ford, his fourth, and for Best Cinematography. In 2013, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Curiously, the famous film director was born the same year as the British writer Gerald Brenan, author of outstanding works about Spain, as South from Granada, and shares with Ford his Irish ascendancy, in addition to year of birth "1894", at this time the 125th anniversary of their birth is celebrated. Edward Fitzgerald Brenan (7 April 1894, Sliema, Malta - 19 January 1987, Málaga, Spain) was an Irish descent as his name suggests, on his father's side, the third generation of British soldiers, and on his mother side, daughter of Ogilvie Graham, he had a cotton and linen company in Belfast. His grandfather, according to Gathorne-Hardy, Brenan's biographer,  became one of the richest men in Ireland and was finally Knighted. In Brenan's book, A Life of One's Own. Brenan refers to Larchfield as the pink house, the mansion where he used to spend time with his family near Belfast, when he was a child.

Sources

https://www.stpatricksfestival.ie/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quiet_Man 
http://www.lcct.org/the-quiet-man-1952-g-maine-theater-ev1438.aspx
Brenan, G. (1962).  A Life of One’s Own. London: Jonathan Cape.
Gathorne-Hardy, J. (1992). The Interior Castle. A life of Gerald Brenan. London: Sinclair-Stevenson.