The artist, Mary Joseph McGarrity Shore, eldest daughter of Joe and Kathryn McGarrity, died in Gloucester, Massachusetts, on August 1st, aged 87. In her career, she drew much praise from art critics for her "mastery of colour". She studied painting at New York's Cooper Union Art School and Chicago's Art Institute. Her work appeared in group exhibitions at the Boston Society of Independent Artists, the Boston Arts Festival, 1953-55, and the Cambridge Art Association in 1956.
She exhibited at Noriyst Gallery, New York, in 1949; the Lyceum, Havana, Cuba, 1950; de Cordova Gallery, Lincoln, Massachusetts, 1956 and 1957; Boris Mirski Gallery, Boston, 1960; the Philadelphia Art Alliance, 1963 and 1965; Fitchburg Art Museum, 1965 and 1971; Hilliard Gallery in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, and Horizon Gallery, Rockport and Newton, Massachusetts, in 1964. Permanent collections of her works are at the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts, the Fitzburg Art Museum and the Baltimore Art Museum. She received the Blanche E. Colman Art Foundation Award in 1956 and is listed in Who's Who in American Art and Who's Who of American Women. She was also a contributor of essays to various literary magazines.
Her sister, Deirdre McGarrity Mullen said: "She was my oldest sister and she was a very giving person, and she loved Ireland."
Loving Ireland was part of the McGarrity heritage. The children learned about its art, literature and history from their father, Joseph McGarrity, who has been described as one of the most important men in the Irish revolutionary movement. Joseph McGarrity, who was born in Carrickmore, Co Tyrone, in 1874, left Ireland at the age of 16 for Philadelphia, eventually becoming a successful businessman with a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.
The McGarrity home in Philadelphia was a haven for the prominent participants in the 1916 rebellion, and Mary McGarrity Shore delighted in retelling stories about them. From 1912 to 1921 visitors included Bulmer Hobson, Roger Casement, Padraic Pearse, Harry Boland and Eamon de Valera. Joseph McGarrity cleared St. Enda's heavy debt and saved Pearse and the school from bankruptcy.
Roger Casement was a house guest before he sailed to Norway and Germany in September, 1914. Mary McGarrity Shore once recalled how he "tossed her in the air for joy" as a child when he learned that Childers had landed a cargo of rifles at Howth for the volunteers.
Aras an Uachtarain,' Deirdre McGarrity Mullen told The Irish Times. We visited there a number of times with my Dad."
From 1912 to 1921 visitors to McGarrity's home in Philadelphia included Bulmer Hobson, Roger Casement, Padraic Pearse, Harry Boland and Eamon de Valera. McGarrity cleared St. Enda's heavy debt and saved Pearse and the school from bankruptcy.
Casement was McGarrity's house guest before he sailed to Norway and Germany in September 1914. Mary McGarrity Shore recalled "how he tossed her in the air for joy" as a child when he learned that Childers had landed a cargo of rifles at Howth for the Volunteers.
As a member of the Clan's Revolutionary Directory, McGarrity was planning a second rebellion after the defeat of the Easter rising. He asked for "arms and men to be sent from Germany to Ireland" in December 1916. The Germans agreed to send arms but not men in 1917. When the US entered the war his contact with Germany ended and he was denounced by the Wilson administration. De Valera's successful US propaganda and bond drive in 191920 was organized by Joseph McGarrity.
It was against this background that Mary McGarrity's love for Ireland was fostered. In the late summers of 1938 and 1939, Joseph McGarrity and his daughters spent their holidays in Ireland and Germany, according to Deirdre McGarrity Mullen. "We were in Berlin the day the war started in 1939." But they left for Sweden and caught a liner home. Mary McGarrity Shore's husband, John Shore, an executive with a shoe company, died in 1973.
She is survived by two sons, Brian and Kevin Shore, her sisters, Kathryn, Elizabeth, Marie Therese, Deirdre, and Rosaleen, and a brother, Eamon de Valera McGarrity.
Mary McGarrity Shore; born 1912; died August 1999