The John Ford Festival in an Spidéal has, this weekend, been focusing on emigration from Connemara to the State of Maine
The story of the famous film-maker is an example of how the descendants of emigrants from the west shaped many aspects of American life.
As a film director, he holds the record for Oscars - 6 of them in all. This best-known film "The Quiet Man" is set in Connemara and south Mayo.
His name is John Ford - but that is not his real name. That surname was not common in Connemara.
John Ford's real name was John Feeney.
They are celebrating his connections with an Spidéal this weekend and visiting the site of his ancestral place in the townland of an Tuar Beag.
John Ford's parents left that area for Portland in the State of Maine, a hub for Connemara people in the years leading up to 1900, and afterwards.
Most emigrants resided in cities but the Feeney's lived out in rural Maine and the house still stands.
Young John Feeney was a promising American footballer and he was labelled "The Bull Feeney". That's the name over the doors of a Portland pub to this day.
But John Feeney headed for Hollywood and became the legendary John Ford.
