Since then, readers have continued to be charmed by these accounts of the simple and common activities of the characters in 1920s rural Ireland. The lives of Hugh Forbes, Paddy Bawn Enright, Archibald MacDonald, Joan Hyland, and Nuala Kierley intermingle as the themes of nationalism, human dignity, honor, and love are given full play. Made famous by John Ford's Oscar-winning film The Quiet Man, starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, these remain humorous and poignant tales set against a backdrop of intrigue and Irish civil unrest.

    

    These were illegal schools, originally of the Irish language, in the oral curriculum, and later, when it became illegal to educate a Catholic in anything but a Protestant school, in the literate English curriculum.