Thomas Joseph Wynne

Thomas Joseph Wynne (1838 – 26 October 1893) was an American–Irish photographer and shopkeeper, best known for his nineteenth-century photographs of the west of Ireland.

Early life

Wynne was born in 1838, probably in the United States to an Irish-American mother (the third daughter of Richard MacEvilly from county Mayo) and an unknown father and it is thought he grew up in the United States. By 1860, Wynne had returned to his Irish roots in the west of Ireland and on 4 August 1860 he married Ellen Semple in the Roman Catholic church in Castlebar, county Mayo. Ellen died in 1862, her death attributed to complications in giving birth to their only son John William Wynne (12 July 1861–).

In 1861, Wynne established a stationery shop and news agency in Castlebar, county Mayo, moving premises in 1864 and gradually expanding to include a tourist travel service, a lending library and bookshop, a newspaper delivery service, and eventually an auction service in 1886. In the advertisement, Wynne listed himself as "photographer, stationer, bookseller, and general newsagent."

In late September 1884, Wynne was advertising "splendid photos" of the wreck of the gunboat HMS Wasp, which had sunk on reefs near Tory Island, off the north-west coast of County Donegal, with the death of 52 crew members.

Wynne died on 26 October 1893, aged 55, in Castlebar and is buried in the old churchyard in the town. He left his estate to his second wife Margaret and it is believed she carried on the stationary side of the business after his death.

A significant number of Wynne's photographs have survived in various collections in Ireland including Mayo county library, and the Source Photographic Archives. Mayo county library holds a collection presented by the Wynne family including 3,000 prints by Wynne and his children. The National Library of Ireland holds the Wynne Collection and the Wynne album, a captioned albumen prints featuring the topography and people of counties Mayo and Galway, both presented by the Wynne family.

Wynne's surviving photographs offer a unique insight into the social history of the west of Ireland in the late 1800s, an eventful period that is not especially well documented photographically, "a major heritage of national as well as local significance."