The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
A Dublin City University professor has spent the past five years on the trail of an illustrious South Galway family. His journey, and that of the O’Shaughnessys, reaches from the ruins of the old homestead in Newhall to Illinois, Missouri and New York. In his new book, An Irish-American Odyssey: The Remarkable Rise of the O’Shaughnessy Brothers, Colum Kenny, journalist and DCU professor of communications, details the struggle and success of the family between 1860 and 1950. The O’Shaughnessys had been tenants of the Gregorys of Kiltartan. The father of the titular siblings was born in Newhall, outside Gort, within sight of Ballylee Tower, long before its Yeats’ association. He left for Boston during the Great Famine, settling eventually in Missouri, where he named his home Newhall. The extraordinary upward trajectory of the brothers’ fortunes saw one become the first CEO of the American Association of Advertising Agencies in New York, another establish himself as Chicago’s leading Gaelic Revival artist …
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