Imagine my surprise when Honora mailed me, told me they were coming over, and would like to meet me.

Dolores was full of stories and she has enthused me to find out more about her father’s art and his family and their wider involvement in journalism and the newspaper industry in Ireland.

I was originally very disappointed in the Wikipedia entry for Gordon and one of my early priorities is to expand it and give him his due place in history (with a link to the collection of course !)

Thanks again to NLI with which my experiences (over 40 years) have always been very positive and rewarding.

I learned that Gordon had gone out that day from his house in Sutton to the Gem in Howth to buy sweets for the children.

I also found it very touching meeting Dolores, who is a marvellous person. The last time our two families came in contact was when my mother whispered an act of contrition in Gordon’s ear as he lay collapsed on the floor of the shop. I only learned of that aspect of his death very recently from a cousin when I happened, for the first time, to mention Gordon to her.

It was also just recently that I learned of Gordon’s two brothers’ history in WWI in the South Irish Horse Regiment. One of the two, Richard, went missing in the final year of the war and it was some months before it was established that he had been killed and not simply taken prisoner. The uncertaintly must have been a cause of some anguish for the family and I gather that neither Gordon nor his father ever got over Richard’s death. While Richard’s body still lies on the field of battle, he is remembered on the family gravestone in Kilbarrack Cemetery, near Sutton.

I hadn’t realised, until I re-read this blogpost online, that Gordon died on Bloomsday, though that celebration was not invented until the fiftieth anniversary of the actual Bloomsday, and some eight years after Gordon’s death.

Finally, thanks to Carol for turning my original text into the marvellous post above.