Robert Shaw honoured in Tourmakeady

Robert Shaw honoured in Tourmakeady


Memorial to late ‘Jaws’ actor marks beginning of a week of music, culture and language

Emer Gallagher

JAWS actor Robert Shaw has been immortalised in his adopted village of Tourmakeady after a stone memorial was unveiled in his honour last weekend.
The memorial, overlooking Lough Mask, bears an inscription to the actor who died almost 30 years ago in the Gaeltacht village. Mr Shaw had lived in Tourmakeady for seven years and was extremely well-liked within the close-knit community. His widow, Virginia, two of his sons, Colin and Tom, and daughter Penny, were special guests on Saturday last when the memorial was unveiled.
“They were really delighted with it. In a way they were shocked and surprised that we decided to do it so they were very happy and they enjoyed the day,” said Connie O’Toole, who helped organise the event.
The Lancashire-born actor died in 1979, at the age of 51, close to the spot where his memorial now stands after suffering a fatal heart attack while driving home from a golf outing with friends. Seán Ó Conghaile, master of ceremonies at Saturday’s unveiling, recalled Shaw as a gregarious, friendly man who ‘always spoke to the people and was at home in anybody’s company’.
The famous actor, best known for his role as the boat-owner ‘Quint’ in Jaws, moved his family to Tourmakeady in the early seventies and immersed himself in the community where his children attended the local school. Mr Shaw was remembered as ‘a great man, a man who had great affection and appreciation for his adopted area’.
Colin Shaw told the hundred-strong gathering that the death of his father, who also appeared in The Sting and From Russia with Love, had cast a long shadow.
“Offscreen he remained a family man. He valued the privacy that he found in Tourmakeady. He had a deep affection for the landscape and the people of Mayo and would be absolutely delighted that he is being commemorated locally,” he said.
Mr Shaw’s widow, Virginia, who was living with him in Tourmakeady when he died, said it was an emotional time. She said Shaw loved Tourmakeady and declared he had discovered ‘the most wonderful place on earth’.
“He was a wonderful person. He was fun, generous, naughty, drank too much and loved his children,”she said. “He just wanted to be himself. He wanted real life. Tourmakeady gave him that. He didn’t like the razzmatazz of Hollywood.”
The memorial to the late actor marked the beginning of Féile na Locha which runs until this Friday, August 15. The week-long festival incorporates Ceol na Locha which is a music, culture and language school sponsored mainly by Údarás na Gaeltachta and An Comhairle Ealaíon, and is held at Coláiste Muire, Tourmakeady. Now in its eighth year, the school provides training at beginner and intermediate level in button accordion, tin whistle, fiddle, banjo and mandolin, flute, bodhrán, concertina, guitar, ‘sean nós’ dancing, art, conversational Irish and ‘caoladóireacht’, basket weaving with Joe Hogan. All teaching is through the medium of Irish.
Connie O’Toole, one of the main organisers of the festival, said the numbers at the school seemed to be on a par with last year, when 200 students were in attendance.