John Arnold: A Hollywood ending as I meet new member of clan from U.S

WE often here about ‘bringing it all back home’ or ‘making connections’, and sometimes amazing things happen that may look like simple coincidences, but I often wonder: are they set somewhere in the stars?

Like last Friday, as most of our parish were agog with ‘film fever’ in anticipation of the local GAA club’s Big Night At The Oskars event.

Well, the glamour and style of the red carpet is most associated with Hollywood and big cities in the USA. The ‘lights, cameras and action’ command from producers and directors was always a world away from us in our local community.

Then this Spring, all changed, utterly changed, and hundreds of us became part of that glamorous razzamatazz - if only for a few months! It was wonderful, gave us all a lift, and raised funds for the club.

So, there I was on Friday, preparing to walk that red carpet at the Rochestown Hotel, when American visitors dropped in to see us in the midst of the silver screen mayhem. True, I’d got an email from Gwenn Wilson some time back stating she was coming over to Ireland from the Home of Uncle Sam and could we meet. 

She reckoned she might be of the same clan as me, so on Oskar day I met this remarkable woman for the first time.

The Arnolds round here go back a long time - 1687 is the oldest date on an Arnold headstone in Rathcormac Cemetery.

I recall years ago when I first met 105-year-old Ciss Geaney in Fermoy - she died aged 110. Well, when Ciss heard my surname, she said: “Ah, the Arnolds, ye were big people one time and ye’ve nothing now.”

In her youth in the late 1880s, the Arnolds had a public house, a shop, a bakery, a mill and a farm. They were like the merchant princes of the area.

Ciss and myself became great friends and often laughed about her pithy summary of the fortunes of the Arnold family in Rathcormac.

Different Arnolds went to England, Australia, New Zealand and America. Were we all related? Probably, and if not blood relatives, then certainly connected on a multi-branched family tree.

In the early 1800s, Bartholomew Edward Arnold was born in Rathcormac - we think his father was William; this William was my great grandfather’s father as far as I can make out.

Edward married a girl from Lisgoold, Johanna Doyle, and like so many other Irish families, they emigrated to America and settled in the Connecticut area.

The Arnold couple brought their children State-side with them. One of their sons was Michael Edward - always called Michael E. Arnold.

The newly-arrived emigrants worked at different jobs over the years until they settled into the American way of life. Like so many who left Ireland, they seemed to have had no contact with their relatives back in the Rathcormac/Bartlemy area - understandable, I suppose, because they were starting a new life in a new country and in reality the prospects of ever seeing Ireland again were miniscule.

Bartholomew Edward died in 1895 aged 70 and his son Michael E passed away in 1936. Michael’s son, Harold Arnold, was a fairly successful businessman and became a meat salesman. He had sisters, one of whom, Helen, ran a very lucrative ‘speak-easy’ establishment in New York during the Prohibition years. Her establishment was frequented by many upwardly mobile citizens, including several clergymen!

Back down the country, Harold Arnold employed a housekeeper, Mary Elizabeth Lincinkis. They developed a relationship and she became pregnant. Harold was not married at the time but must have decided he was not accepting any responsibility for his romantic dalliance.

When the time came for the child to be born in June, 1936, Harold drove Mary Elizabeth to a maternity Home some distance from where they lived. On June 6, their baby son was born. Harold registered him with the name Edward Raymond Thompson and wrote Edward Thompson down as the child’s father - he recorded the correct name for the mother.

Harold then high tailed it to New York where he worked in sister Helen’s ‘unlicensed premises’ - basically, he abandoned his son and the child’s mother.

So the little boy grew up as Edward Raymond Thompson and was reared in different orphanages and institutions and with a few foster parents. He had really no family around him at all and no relations anywhere.

His mother eventually married and had two sons, but young Edward knew nothing of this.

He joined the US services just as World War II was ending. He married and had four children - Gwenn is one of these four.

Growing up, Gwenn asked her father about his extended family and other relatives, but unfortunately Edward knew very little. He remembered his mother but had not met her since he was a child.

With his permission, Gwenn started trying to unravel the mystery of her father’s background. It took her 12 years, but solve it she did.

In 1994, she found her father’s mother, then aged 79. So after decades apart, Edward Raymond Thompson met his mother in 1994. She told them the full story of Harold Arnold and his departure from her life.

For the next three years, mother and son had a good relationship, but he died aged just 61 in 1997. His mother lived until 2004.

Gwenn told me her father had looked at the possibility of ‘reclaiming his identity’ as an Arnold, but it was so complicated and he decided to leave things as they were.

His mother had two sons from her marriage and he met both. Overall, the coming together and meeting up was very emotional but they all got on really well.

After her grandmother passed away, Gwenn tried to trace other possible Arnold relatives, but with little success - until last week.

We met on Friday afternoon, a tearful, joyful, happy and emotional meeting. We hugged for a long time. Gwenn was so overcome to be with her Arnold flesh and blood.

The motions overflowed again when we stood amongst the rows of Arnold headstones in Rathcormac cemetery. We were both standing on the hallowed ground where ‘our people’ had been buried since the 1600s.

We met again on Saturday and Kieran Jordan and Robert Barry joined Gwenn and her husband ken. Kieran and Robert are brilliant genealogists and were quickly able to put branches, roots, twigs and leaves on our common Arnold family tree.

I went back on old emails and letters I’d got over the years from other Arnold relatives in America. Gradually, a tapestry of relations, cousins and connections was woven before our eyes.

Gwenn and Ken left for home yesterday, but they’ll be back. Gwenn was born a Thompson, married a Wilson, but now she knows that truly she is an Arnold.

I have recently renewed my passport and I have the free travel, so there’s an open invitation to cross the Atlantic, just like so many of my Arnold relatives did in the past.

I won two Oskars last Friday - one for a part in a film and the second for Finding A New Family.