A small outpost of civilization in the Northern Atlantic, Tory Island was described by Richard Ingleby as “an isolated finger of land nine miles off the coast.”(1) The rocky cliffs and rugged terrain of this Irish island were where James Dixon spent his entire life, first as a sailor and fisherman, and later as an admired painter.
Dixon was born on Tory Island on June 2, 1887. His mother was a native islander and his father came from County Donegal on the Irish mainland. There were six children in the family, one of whom eventually left the island to live in the United States. Or, as Dixon said, to live in the next parish, meaning Connecticut.