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Bridget Doohan, who is descended from Phillip Rogers, arrived in the United States from Tory Island, Ireland, on April 21, 1904. |
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Tory Island, or Oilean Toraigh in Irish, is an island off the northwest coast of County Donegal, in the Republic of Ireland. The island is approximately five miles long and one mile wide. |
Tory Island at Sunset |
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The eight miles or so of water that separates the island from the mainland has a bad reputation. Angry and unpredictable, Tory Sound is one of the most dangerous stretches of water around our coast, regularly impassable for weeks on end during the winter months.
There are two small towns on the island, the east town and the west town. The east is the larger of the two, containing a round tower and church from St Colmcille's sixth-century monastery.
A little way up the road from Tory's new harbour is a gallery displaying the work of the island's painters. Dedicated to one of the best of them, the late James Dixon, it also serves as a studio for another, Anton Meehan. He started painting 15 years ago, after he got married. |
Dixon's Art Gallery |
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Tory painting would never have come into being if it hadn't been for a man named Derek Hill. A highly respected English painter, Hill began coming to Tory in the 1960s to paint its extraordinary landscapes.
In the summer of 1968, a local man, the same James Dixon, who had been watching Hill paint, approached the artist and told him he thought he himself could do better. Hill challenged him to do so, and offered him paints and a brush. Dixon refused the brush, saying he would make his own from the hairs of a donkey's tail. He did, and Derek Hill was very impressed with the resulting painting.
Other Islanders, including Patsy Dan Rodgers (now the king), joined in, and with Hill's support, a movement or school of Tory artists emerged. Their simple, powerful depictions of their island and the seascapes around it were described as 'primitive,' not so much because of their perspectiveless style but because of the rough materials they used.
As the old staples of fishing and farming have died out, survival on the island has become increasingly difficult. The community's long presence on Tory nearly came to an end altogether in 1974, when a massive storm convinced some islanders, and some Dublin politicians, that the time had come to abandon ship. During that winter, a seemingly eternal storm swept in off the north Atlantic and battered the island for more than eight weeks, severing every form of communication, even helicopters.
Words alone, no matter how finely woven, could never give a true impression of the rugged beauty of Tory, the indomitable spirit of its people or their rich cultural inheritance. This remote island withstands the full fury of the North Atlantic winter to blossom once again in the soft summer sunlight. But through the changing seasons, one thing remains constant, the Islanders themselves. |
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