Following a successful Festival in 2025, Féile John Ford returns for a second year to An Spidéal, Co. Galway, from Friday 11 to Sunday 13 September, to pay tribute to one of Hollywood’s most influential directors, John Ford, and celebrate his connection to the West of Ireland and Cois Fharraige. 

Born John Martin O’Feeney in Portland, Maine to Galway parents, Ford’s father hailed from Tuar Beag, half a mile west of An Spidéal, while his mother came from Coill Rua nearby. Throughout his life, Ford maintained strong ties to Ireland, regularly visiting An Spidéal and later transforming Connemara into the unforgettable backdrop for his Oscar-winning 1952 classic, The Quiet Man.

His biographer Joseph McBride wrote: “Near the end of his life, Ford recalled that it was here in Spiddal, while visiting his family’s ancestral home as a boy, that he acquired his love of landscape and his eye for composition.”

Highlights at this year’s Festival include: screenings of some of Ford’s most famous films; The Quiet Man (1952) and My Darling Clementine (1946); screenings of adaptations of two Irish literary giants, Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars and Liam O’Flaherty’s The Informer; as well as a one-man play The Quiet Men, based on the lives of brothers Barry Fitzgerald and Arthur Shields, written and performed by Morgan C. Jones. 

Conversations across the weekend will bring panelists such as historians Cormac Ó Grada and Breandán Mac Suibhne; author and historian of the Abbey Theatre and Ford expert, Adrian Frazier; as well as a very special discussion between Tony Tracy and Michael Ford, grandson of Francis Ford, John’s older brother.

Programme and booking at FeileJohnFord.com