2.Heritage Week 2024

Voices of the Village, Guthanna an Sráidbhaile Dumha Acha


Seachtain Náisiúnta na hOidhreachta. Heritage Week 2024 takes place from 17th – 25th August 2024. This year’s theme is “Connections, Routes and Networks”, and the Heritage Council invites all to explore how we are connected to each other both through physical routes and cultural connections. 

Robert Henri’s Dooagh Sitters

Heritage Week Event 2

Thursday 22nd August, 5pm – 7pm

  • Gielty’s Bar and Restaurant
  • Dooagh, Achill, Co. Mayo
  • F28 F6C1
  • Co. Mayo

Michael O’Donnell from Achill reads his poem on Robert Henri and the children

For The Museum of Childhood Ireland researcher Áine Maguire, through sponsorship of the museum by Mayo County Council, has completed an Achill Oral History project on behalf of the MCI. The project relates to the sitters of American artist Robert Henri’s portraits.

These portraits were painted by the artist between 1913 – 1928 in his home at Corrymore House, Dooagh, Achill, Co Mayo.

Most all of the sitters were children from Dooagh who have now passed away. The project set out to interview their relatives and bring this cultural phenomenon to the fore, as a continuation of the Museum of Childhood Ireland’s Robert Henri and the Children of Dooagh Project 2022-2023, and History Festival in March 2023 with Achill Tourism, and Paired Portraits children’s workshops with the children of Dooagh NS:

The Children of Achill & Robert Henri Project & History Festival
Paired Portraits Exhibition


The 2024 research presentation will speak to the lives of the children of the portraits, their families and their relationship to Dooagh, with relevant information from the project interviews.

Connections, Routes and Networks….Dooagh, Achill, Co Mayo, and United States, UK…

  • Doors will open at 5pm 
  • John Hoban will play the fiddle from 5pm until the start.  
  • Anna Sutcliffe, from the Museum of Childhood Ireland, Músaem Óige na hÉireann Team will welcome all, and read an introduction to the oral history project on behalf of Majella McAllister and Dr Sarah-Anne Buckley
  • Anna will also be on hand with a book for people to sign in if they would like to
  • Refreshments will be available on arrival
  • The talk will be recorded, and photos taken
  • Aine Maguire will present the research
  • Guests will be invited to ask questions
  • John Hoban will play the fiddle to end 

Copies of Robert Henri’s portraits will be hung for people to view.

‘The Museum of Childhood Ireland’s Oral Histories Research Project Achill’, will be held in a digital repository housed by the James Hardiman Library along with relevant documents. A living archive, it will be added to and built upon over time by the MCI.

EVENT 2: GUTHANNA AN SRÁIDBHAILE DUMHA ACHA

SUITEOIRÍ DUMHA ACHA

Chríochnaigh an taighdeoir Áine Maguire, atá urraithe ag Comhairle Contae Mhaigh Eo,tionscadal Stair Bhéil thar ceann fhoireann staire Mhúsaem na hÓige. Baineann an tionscadal seo le portráidí de chuid an ealaíontóra Robert Henri.

Phéinteáil an t-ealaíontóir na portráidí seo idir 1913 – 1928 ina theach i dTeach an Choire Mhóir, Dumha Acha.

Leanaí ón sráidbhaile ba ea formhór na suiteoirí ar fad. Chuaigh an tionscadal chun agallamh a chur ar a ngaolta agus an feiniméan cultúrtha seo a thabhairt chun cinn.

Labhróidh Áine ar a cuid taighde agus ar shaol na bpáistí sna portráidí, ar a dteaghlaigh agus ar a ngaol le Dumha Acha, agus ar eolas ábhartha ó agallaimh an tionscadail.

Abhár a bheidh clúdaithe sa chur i láthair: Naisc, Bealaí agus Líonraí….an sráidbhaile, an t-oileán, na Stáit Aontaithe, an Ríocht Aontaithe srl.

Crochfar cóipeanna de phortráidí le go bhfeicfidh daoine iad. Beidh plé oscailte ina dhiaidh sin agus sólaistí ar fáíl.

GRMA Anna Sutcliffe

Áine Maguire presents research on behalf of the Museum of Childhood Ireland

Event 1. is inter-generational and takes place in the morning from 11am -1pm with local artist Maeve Clancy: https://museumofchildhood.ie/1-heritage-week-2024/

Further Information

Museum of Childhood Ireland

Robert Henri and The Children of Achill: Oral History 
A Transcription

Interviewee: Carol Ann Spizzirri
Interviewer: Áine Maguire, for MCI  
Birth Name: Noreen Frances O’Malley
Place of Birth: Toronto, Canada

Date of Interview: November 2023
Place of Interview: Zoom, Carol Ann in Toronto.

AM:  Áine Maguire  
CAS: Carol Ann Spizzirri
  
Transcript:  Light editing of filler words, and interviewer’s extraneous

words…etc.

Sound Quality: Good. Carol Ann’s voice is a little lighter than AM’s as recording was

over zoom, but all of it audible.

Carol Ann Spizzirri, Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

2

Carol Ann Spizzirri

Catherine O’Malley,

Summary
Carol Ann Spizziri was born Noreen Francis O’Malley in Toronto in 1950 to Catherine
O’Malley, from Dooagh.
Catherine was painted a number of times by Henri as were her siblings, Charlie, Nora, Patrick and Bridget. There is another sister Mary, but I think that the Mary O’Malley Henri painted isn’t that Mary. According to Tom The Boley McNamara, that Mary is from Pollagh. But I cannot confirm this yet. Catherine was unmarried and living in Chicago. She went to Toronto to have her baby and then gave her up for adoption. Catherine’s sister, Nora Burns lived in NY and she was the only member of the family who knew about the baby. Nora and her husband John considered
adopting Carol Ann, but that fell through and Carol Ann was adopted to a Toronto family. She finally met her birth mother when she was 34 years old, her mother was 74 at this time and came to Toronto with Nora her sister to meet up with Carol. For the previous year they had exchanged letters.
Carol Ann gives details of Catherine’s siblings. She got all her knowledge of Achill from Brian McNeil, whose wife May was a relation…her father Anthony O’Malley, was the son of Catherine’s sister, Bridget). Carol Ann contacted May and Brian via a cousin, Erin O’Malley, who lives in Toronto and whom Carol met on Ancestry.com. They have become firm friends. Carol Ann has never been to Achill.

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

4
AM
So am I am speaking to Carol Ann Spizzirri. Is that how I say your surname? Thank you. And you are in Canada? In Toronto, in the freezing cold without your furnace.

CAS
-20.

AM
It’s actually snowing here today, Carol Ann, which is very unusual for us, especially at the coast.
So we are experiencing, like, -2 or -3, which is very cold for here. Uh, but nothing like you have it. So I just want to start, if you don’t mind telling me your date of birth, Carol Ann.

AM
I hope you have some good celebrations planned.

CAS
Thank you. Yeah, I do. We got some lovely gifts already.

AM

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

5
Ohh that’s wonderful. Ohh that’s I love that. Gifts are good … So, Carol Ann, why don’t you tell me? First of all, how you heard about this project please.

CAS
I heard it from a cousin I have here in Toronto, Erin O’Malley, and someone sent her a link. She knew my mother and she knew about the portraits, but she didn’t have to feel that she had a close enough connection to get involved herself. She sent me the link and she said I think you’re gonna be really interested in this. And I was. So that’s when I contacted you.

AM
OK. And I’m delighted you did.

AM
So you were you weren’t born Carol Ann. Would you like to tell me a little bit about your connection to Achill, please?

CAS
OK, I was born Noreen Francis O’Malley, in Toronto, Canada. But my mother was in one of the portraits. Catherine O’Malley she was born in Achill and raised in Achill…. Lived in Chicago for many years. And she had come to Toronto when she was 40. Then she got pregnant, and she had a baby. That was me. Then she put me up for adoption, and then she left. (Went back to Chicago) And she spent most of her life in Chicago. And then as she got older, her family helped her to relocate to Achill. And she died at 103 and I don’t know how you say, but St. Fionnan’s

AM
Yeah, St. Fionnan’s.

CAS
I’m smoking.

AM

Yeah, St. Fionnan’s. It’s a nursing home in Achill Island.

CAS
Yes.

AM
God, she lived to 103. And three and tell me, umm, Carol Ann. Did your mother have any other children?

CAS
She had no other children and she never married, and I was the great secret of her life. In fact, she met the love of her life years after I was born. He went back to England and he was divorced by then and I said, well, “why didn’t you get together”?. And she said “Ohh if I did that, I would have to tell him about you. And I couldn’t bring myself to do it”.

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript


AM
Yeah, it was such a big deal until not too long ago. Really, you know, and how isn’t this? UM, but you did meet her.

CAS
I met her in 1984. We met through community and social services. She come to Toronto with her sister Nora, who was also one of in one of the portraits, and her sister Lauren?? (Think that’s Nora again) , her going to Toronto when they registered at the Social Services Centre and they have to make a match. So I would have had to have registered as well. I didn’t register until 10 years later. So she had 10 year gap between the times you searched for me and got any news? So I contacted social services. They called me one day and said we have a match. Your mother registered. Her name is and you can start exchanging letters. So for one year we exchange letters. You tell me all about yourself and not go Island and Uncle Charlie and Uncle Patrick. Uncle Edward. And then she came to Toronto. And we spent a night in a hotel together.

AM
My God, , what age were you at this stage? Umm, Carol Ann.

CAS
I was 34

AM
My goodness.

CAS
And I had a little boy (Adrian)
And I said, what do you want me to call you? I just wanted to call her Catherine.
And she said Ohh, mother. OK, then I say, what do you want Adrian to call you? And she said
Ohh grandma.

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

8
AM
And were you able to do that?

CAS
Oh yeah, sure, that’s that’s what she wanted, yeah.

AM
Gosh. Oh, wow, what a lovely meeting. So until your 30s, you had no idea of your Irish heritage.
Or did you know you? Nothing.

CAS
No, but when my parents told me I was adopted, they told me that my mother and father were dead, but I had no family. I had no relatives. And that was the last time it was ever spoken of. And when I was 23, one of my aunt ssaid to me, ohh, Carol Ann, I think your mother’s name was O’Malley. Something very Irish. She said. I think you were an Irish girl.

AM
Oh, I’m sorry.

CAS
That was the first time I didn’t even knew I had culture.

AM
Goodness me, but you have since been to Achill?. Or have you ever travelled to there?

CAS
No, I go on those YouTube videos where people put cameras on their cars and I’ve watched hundreds of videos about Achill and my cousin who lives there still, my first cousin, is the daughter of ‘Bucko’ Charles, who’s also one of the portraits.

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

9

AM

His daughter. And what’s her name?

CAS

Her name is May McNeil. It’s like she’s my first cousin. And she’s very ill. But her husband has been the greatest like brother. A link between me and Achill. And it was through Brian that I met all the family in Chicago, New York and Wisconsin, Toronto.

AM
Wow.

CAS
I keep in touch with Brian regularly as well as with Erin O’Malley, who lives in Toronto, and she was the one in during COVID where we connected on ancestry. I’ve been on ancestry for a few years. And had had no results and had really doing comma given up and I threw up all of my research. All of my maps, all of my notes, all the letters because I said Ohh was gonna want any of this. No, nothing’s ever gonna come and within months. My husband said, you know, you’ve got a connection. I came with few months ago from a woman called Erin O’Malley. On ancestry and then Erin, Erin actually spent her summers in Achill, June, July and August, and grandparents were from there, her grandmother, her great grandmother, is Bridget.

AM
Her great grandmother is. Can you hold out? It’s the girl with the Chinese dress. Oh, yes. OK.
Yes.

CAS

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

10
So Erin and I have become very close, SHe’s like my daughter.

AM
That’s so nice. So you get to meet her and you meet up with her.

CAS
Yes, I mean, we’ve had lunches together and we had chats every week and we’re on WhatsApp together. So she’s going to be in also on everything about our goal because she spent three months growing every summer growing up there. She spent with her grandparents.

AM
So that’s amazing that she that you now have a connection with your a blood relative, someone that you can see frequently. That’s really nice. Had, UM, how did then how did Robert Henri ever come into the picture? The artist?

CAS
On these photographs that I have, they’re photographs of paintings, they were sent to me by a second cousin, an O’Malley, Because ? was not involved. In in any of the her her grandmother was Mary O’Malley, but she was the same family and she sent me that those because they lived in Chicago for a long time. And I think there was a museum in Chicago that had a lot of his even family, made it on my great grandfather Brian. Which hangs in the refrigerator. From whatever music you.

AM
My yeah. Wow.

CAS
That’s great. Great granddaddy Brian.

AM
Wow.

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

11
CAS
He is the father of my mother, Mary O’Malley, and it is Mary and Thomas. Who had all? Of the children that were in the portraits. [think she’s made an error here, trying to clear it up in the next question

AM
Right, OK. I see. And and it is. Uh, and your own mother. Catherine, did you have a picture of her?…, her portrait?

CAS
Yes.

AM
Yeah, I can. It’s lovely, isn’t it? It’s a lovely thing to have.

CAS

1924 is marked on the back.

AM

Right, OK. And in, did you ever did, did you ever speak to her about that? Do you ever remember anything more about?

CAS
He never talks to me about Achill too much.

AM
No.

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

12
CAS
She now she presented herself as an elderly, very isolated, lonely lady with no family anywhere. Because she had family in Toronto, she had family living in Achill and her fear of discovery was so overwhelming.

AM
Even I in her 80s.

CAS
Yeah. She was 74 when I met her. And John and I thought he was just this elderly lady living alone in Chicago. And we I wrote to her and I said, you know, we’d really like you to come to Toronto. There’s a nursing home not far from us, the Catholic Church, right beside it. Because if my mother was anything, she was religious and resilient, religious and resilient, and she disappeared. She disappeared. We thought she had died. We even went to Chicago to try and find her, but her number, her address, everything was gone. She had gone back home to Achill

AM
and she couldn’t tell you.

CAS
You couldn’t tell me, no. When she was dying. In the home and she, I guess under morphine and the different drugs they give you my and my cousins were there and they said she kept calling for her baby.

AM
So how then, if she didn’t introduce you to her relations in Achill, how did you end up meeting them? How did you introduce yourself to Achill.

CAS

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

13
Erin, the the connection on ancestry, she connected me to Brian and my first cousin May. And from there word spread. Some people were just curious with other people, wanted to establish relationships.

AM
And this was the first they had heard about Catherine having had a daughter.

CAS
I would have to say it absolutely blew them away, blew them.

AM
Oh.

CAS
SHe was elderly spinster, super religious, secretive and catty. (Laughter)

AM
Carol Ann, have you any idea who your birth father is?

CAS
Yes, yes, she was Scottish, Irish, Canadian. Who fought for four years in the war. And going so young. So when he came back, his marriage didn’t last, and he was badly injured in the war. So he was supporting his family in another another city and living in Toronto. And they met at a canteen dance in 1949. They were still holding, canteen dances after the war. And my mother said, she had a roommate who said Ohh, you know? Come on, you’re such a stick in the mud, We’ve gotta get out. We’ve gotta get out. So you know my father to canteen dance. And they had a brief affair. But she didn’t know that he was supporting another family, and it wasn’t a
long term relationship…he signed paternity papers, which the social worker said to me was really rare, she said. He didn’t have to do it and it was really unusual, but he did do that.

AM

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

14
Wow. And when you spoke to Catherine, did you get, obviously she was very cosseted about her life on Achill, but she did tell you she was from Achill. She did mention that part. When you spoke to your mother, or did she?

CAS
Yeah, it was her. It was her life is where she wanted to die. Yeah.

AM
Yeah. Ohh OK, so you didn’t keep that private or secret?

CAS
Yeah. He mentioned this place called Achill, which I just thought was very strange and I did all the research after and then Erin filled me in on a lot of the details. She did have a box of belongings when she died and in there were some personal items and letters and I was able to glean more about her life from those like and, he was secretive, she even hidden money, under the carpet.

AM
That’s a very Irish thing to do, Carol Ann. Ohh that’s not strange at all. Everyone hides money under the carpet.

CAS
I thought it was bizarre part of her secretiveness

AM
It’s an odd thing, but the amount of people from that generation, they just didn’t trust banks or institutions. And, you know, people would die and they’d find, you know, thousands of pounds in, in the mattress or, you know, under floorboards and. Yeah, that’s that’s. Yeah, that’s not a, that’s not an odd thing at all. Very standard practice I would say.

CAS

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

15
Yes. When we’re talking about money, when I did meet her, she said that. So for every birthday and every Christmas to put money away from me, $5 or $10 dollars. And she gave me $10,000 in American money.

AM
Wow,

CAS
which is an enormous amount of money. But he said it was money saved all those years. So it’s just put away and never touched and that’s what accumulated.

AM
Wow, isn’t that wonderful? That’s kind of amazing. Yeah, she sounds like she was a very interesting woman. What did you glean then from her, you know, from the research about Catherine’s life. I know you showed me a a letter that where from letter of reference. So she grew up in Achill until she was. What age do you think she left Achill?

CAS
She left this before the war. She was born in 1910 and then he left just before the war broke out in England, and she worked in England in a munitions factory while she waited for the love of her life to come home. He had been shot down in the first year of the war and he was in a prisoner of war camp in Germany.

AM

And is this?

Sorry, this is the man she met in later years.

CAS

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

16
No.

CAS
This is the Love of her life, the man she met when she was in her 20s. I guess during the war and they got engaged. When he came home, when he was Jewish. And he had to go. You know, the the. Catholic, I know. It’s just, but that’s what he was Jewish. And but he was a fighter pilot. It. And his plane got shot down. And they had some kind of fight. And I have a letter where she wrote to him, to say she wanted to make up and she got a letter back and I had the letter from her mother from his mother saying I’m so sorry to tell you, Catherine, that he’s been brought down
and he’s a prisoner of war. So she waited for him. They got engaged in. Something happened when he was doing, you know, the Catholic Church makes you go through all of these hoops that you’re marrying outside. So there was some kind of trauma. Excuse me, true to form. But on what she called I go to my high horse and I. Rode away to Canada.

AM
Ohh golly. It sounds like it could have been a movie.

CAS
Yeah.

AM
And so she went, she went to Cannes. I wonder what age she was then. I’m just trying to get a kind of a picture of her life.

CAS
It was around 1948, yeah, but once she was in Achill, I think the only thing to stay local ever had was this.

AM
OK, OK. This is this St. Colman’s industry.

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

17
CAS

This thing, and I don’t know if it’s connected, but I I saw some papers from the Social service agency called Collins. That helped her resettle and she had a sister assisted housing when she came back and some other things so.

AM
I must check that out, OK.

CAS
By being the nonprofit charitable organisation.

AM
OK, I must look that up. I will. That sounds very interesting and see if it’s any way related to her original job. She was in that job for five years. Isn’t that right? Before she went in 1936 from Colemans.

CAS
There is a book about Eva O’Geraghty, and all about her life, but it has a a bit in there about alcohol and and the industry and mining industry and pictures. I believe sitting on the table, yeah.

AM
OK. For a while.

CAS
So in my mother’s final belongings there was this original not from Eva, . Final belongings there was this original note from Eva. This recommendation, she carried it to her with her everywhere.

AM

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

18
She was very proud of it.

CAS
Absolutely yeah. Because it said she. She was sad for her to leave. I cannot speak too highly of her character, her honesty, reliability, truthfulness, her, she’s stoic and capable worker, and she leaves my employment at her own request and to my regrets.

AM
Wow. And she probably.

CAS
And I do not know why she left.

AM
I wonder.

CAS
She went to England. …

AM

There was such a tradition of, I mean the fact that she had a job and left a job. She must have thought the, you know, the hills were greener far away or something, you know. But but there was such a tradition of leaving the island. Most people, most young people, left, you know and. But maybe she thought she could. Maybe she was looking for some excitement or something.

CAS

She was 20 years old.

AM

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

19
Yeah. Love something? Yeah, something she sounds like she might have been a romantic.

CAS
I think so.

AM
At heart, yeah, it sounds like it.

CAS
My cousin’s name, who’s father was Charlie,

AM
Oh yeah, Bucko.

CAS
Her grandson. Just recently got his papers and left to work in Australia. So the tradition continues.

AM
It does. Unfortunately, a lot of the young kids are and it’s not that they can’t find jobs, but it’s the cost of living, you know, buying a house, getting set up in life has almost become. And even renting, you know. If you’re leaving Achill to move to Dublin or somewhere, the cost of living is just so high that it makes more sense for kids to go to Australia, or indeed Canada or the America. Uh, not so much the UK anymore, because they also have a cost of living crisis. But I think I can see snowing. Is it snowing outside your window?

CAS
No, the sun is shining.

AM
The sun is shining.

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

20
CAS
We have normally in January 140 hours of sunshine, this year we’ve only had 30. So the sun has been soaring in the sea. But today it’s -20. But the sun is here.

AM
Can you can’t even go out in -20, can you really?

CAS
I was out this morning to feed the birds.

AM
Well, that’s nice.

CAS
We didn’t like going to the individual feeders and do all of the things that I do. I took a big bag of food and I went there it is.

AM
OK. Do your worst. And I’m just trying to think if there’s something else that we can that we can look at. I think I’ve covered most of the information that. That we that we talked about in our UM.

CAS
I did have some information about my aunt Bridget.

AM
Oh Yep. Go for. It.

CAS

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

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OK, so he was born. If I can find it. Here and he’s born. Bridget. She was the first born, 1896 and I have a picture of her gravestone. She died in 1934, at 37. She married another O’Malley. And they went off to Canada and had three children. He got sick, they sent him back to Achill. She died and it sounds like it miight have been tuberculosis. So she died very young leaving three small children behind two boys and a girl. Mary, Carly and Anthony.

AM
Oh gosh.

CAS
And the father remained in Canada. And the children had a a kind of housekeeper, nanny lady. Who wasn’t very good.

AM
How do you find? How did you find this out? Is that through your? Is that through, Erin or? How do you know?

CAS
I got some of it through Brian and yes, and because he’s lived on Achill all his life, he was the chap I told you about, right?and his wife May is her name. Her father was the last of the the children. So Brian would have heard all of the stories.

AM
Wow. Very interesting. What we’re hoping to. This is Nora O’Malley, who would be your aunt also?

CAS
If you want to know about Nora. Yes, yes, this photo.

AM
What’s the name of that? Or is there a name? On that picture.

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

22
CAS

Nora O’Malley, Achill Island 1913, Robert Henri

AM
OK, she’s long red hair

CAS
You can see that she was a little older…

AM
She looks it, yeah. And what about Nora?

CAS
Nora went to Canada and she married a man called John Burns. And they left, went to live in New York, and she had one son who died in his. I understood his 30s or 40s or something. But my connection to Nora is she is the only person that my mother ever told about me.

AM
Because she came to Toronto with her the first time.

CAS
Yes. When I was born, my mother was not in a place she was working as a domestic, so she had nowhere to keep me. She wanted to put me up for adoption but she wanted, Nora to adopt me. My mother was 40. Nora was 47. Nora’s husband was in his 50s, so I was in an orphanage. For six months, while my mother tried to arrange for her sister, Nora and her husband to adopt me.

AM
Ohh dear.

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

23
CAS

And when it didn’t work out, she just came to sign the papers and I was adopted into a family here in Toronto so Nora could have been my mom. And everything I’ve heard about her is that she was absolutely lovely, lovely lady. Maybe … generous, very kind,

AM .

CAS

Yeah, very kind. But then I would have grown up in New York with Donald Trump.

AM
So. That was a bit, you know, maybe you maybe you were lucky. I believe he did very well in Iowa the other day, and it is just. Shocking. But you know this. It’s not. It’s only Iowa. We will keep our fingers crossed for that and and. So Nora that I’m just trying to make sure I have this right. So Catherine’s family was Nora Charles. Bridget. And Patrick and Edward, am I right in that?

CAS
Yeah. And there was a Mary. But I I’ve never heard anything about Mary. So those first born was Bridget, then Mary Edward and Patrick, Edward and Patrick went off to America.

AM
Yeah, huh.

CAS
Patrick (she whispers ) was a member of the IRA

AM
OK, that’s OK too.

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

24
CAS
He bought the Black and Tans, to Achill Island and his mother sent into America

AM
Very high chance that he knew my grandfather so also.

CAS
So he never really returned it, he created such a rift. He now I think you know, I was told he never spoke to his mother again. And he never. Returned to Ireland.

AM
Golly

CAS
And you never married?

AM
I just need to get rid of this sign here. That’s it. And he never married. So, but interestingly, so we have. Portraits of Catherine of Nora, of Charles. And and Bridget

CAS
Bridget.

AM
That’s a lot for one family, isn’t it? I must see if I can find where, where they all are. Where those,, that might be interesting.

CAS
Who said they they heated the landscape painting of their their house? It’s this one.

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

25
AM
OK.

CAS
That house is still there…

AM
OK, that’s. That was the family home.

CAS
Yes, and Bucko, Charles gave it to his granddaughter. And it’s run by the family as a BB.

AM
Oh, is this the one on top of the Cliff?

CAS
On top of the question here.

AM
OK, OK. And Bucko gave it to his granddaughter. Do you know what her name is?

CAS
Elaine.

AM
You’re getting cold now because you turned off your geezer, are you?

CAS
How did you notice that, I’m pulling my sweater.

AM

Carol Ann Spizzirri Robert Henri Oral History Transcript

26
Well, please…I am happy to to end our interview. you’ve given me so much information, Carol Ann, it’s incredible. You have a wealth of knowledge gathered up about your family and I’m very grateful to you for turning off your heat and taking the time to chat to me. So what we will do, I’m going to end the recording just now. So that.

END