The 1952 film "The Quiet Man" is set in Ireland and shows some gold coins which a woman's husband has to recover from her possessive brother as part of the woman's wedding dowry. The film is about an Irish-American prizefighter who retires and buys a house in Ireland. He meets and later marries a local woman. He discovers that her brother is holding a large sum of her money and that he will have to fight the brother to retrieve her money, which is in the form of gold coins. The film stars John Wayne as Sean Thornton, a fighter known in America as "Trooper Thorn", and Maureen O'Hara as Mary Kate Danaher, a local girl he courts and marries. The film is set in the early 1950's and was filmed on location in Cong, County Mayo, in the Republic of Ireland. A few electrical power and telephone poles and lines can be seen, as electric power was being installed there at the time.

A train pulls up to a small station and Sean Thornton gets off.

The locals speculate on what he is there for, he isn't a tourist as he doesn't have a camera or a fishing pole. Michaleen Flynn, a local businessman with a coach, takes Sean around the area.

Along the way they look at some property and Sean sees a woman herding sheep.

Sean and Mary form an instant attraction. Sean sees Sarah Tillane, a local landowner, about buying a piece of property with a house. Sean spent his childhood in the house before his mother took him to America.

A wealthy local man, Squire Will Danaher, also wants the property but Sarah sells it to Sean. Squire Danaher becomes Sean's enemy over this deal. Sean starts seeing Mary Kate, who is the Squire's sister. Danaher learns of this and dislikes Sean even more. At a local Irish bar or pub the two men meet and begin to fight.

The other patrons, including the local Catholic priest, Father Peter Lonergan, keep the men apart. Sean has been seeing Mary Kate for a while and finally proposes marriage.

A local custom is that the bride's brother has to give his permission for her to marry, and he refuses. The Squire has been trying to interest wealthy Sarah Tillane in marriage but she has put him off. Flynn and Father Lonergan come up with a scheme.

They tell the Squire that Sarah doesn't want to marry him with another woman in his house. Meanwhile, at an old castle near the town:

Sean takes Mary to the castle for some quiet time.

Mary Kate's brother gives his permission for the wedding. The couple are married at the family house. Squire Danaher brings a bag of gold coins which belong to Mary as part of her dowry. She names the amount as 350 gold pounds.

Danaher spills the coins onto the table.

A view of the coins brightly lit up. They appear to be bright shiny brass prop coins or tokens of some kind.

A view of the coins under a shadow. Ireland hasn't made gold coins of it's own and as the country was controlled by England for a long time, they used English coins. The primary English gold coins of the period would be British sovereigns.

A British gold sovereign of the period:

A sovereign is a British gold coin originally worth one pound (20 shillings). It is the same size and weight as a United States $5 gold coin, 1/4 troy ounce.

Danaher announces that he intends to wed Sarah and she is shocked. He then realizes that he has been tricked into allowing his sister to marry Sean, and swipes the gold coins onto the floor. Mary starts picking up the coins but Sean tells her not to worry about the money.

Danaher then slugs Sean and knocks him to the floor causing Sean to remember when he was the boxer "Trooper Thorn."

Thorn has just found out that his opponent has died and blames himself.

Sean doesn't realize how important the dowry is to Mary Kate and she explains that the furniture and money belonged to her mother and further back. Some locals persuade the Squire to release Mary's furniture but not the money. The furniture includes a small piano.

Sean at first refuses to fight Danaher over the money and Mary leaves him and heads for the train station. He follows her there.

Sean decides to confront Danaher and brings Mary back to the town and to Danaher's place. Word spreads quickly about the impending fight.

Men and women from all over converge on Danaher's farm to watch.

Danaher throws some money at Mary, it appears to be paper, and she puts it in an incinerator.

The big fight starts.

The fighter wear each other out and become friends. They head for Sean's house where Mary serves dinner.

John Wayne as Sean Thornton
Maureen O'Hara as Mary Kate Danaher
Victor McLaglen as Squire Will Danaher
Barry Fitzgerald as Michaleen Oge Flynn
Ward Bond as Father Peter Lonergan
Director: John Ford
Writers: Frank S. Nugent, Maurice Walsh (story)