Oscar-winning actress Anjelica Huston spent part of her youth in Craughwell, Co. Galway where her father, legendary movie director John Huston, owned an estate called St. Clerans. Anjelica lived with her mother and younger brother Tony, in what was known as the estate’s “little house,” and the place still seems to have a place in her heart. Some ten years ago, Anjelica brought her then boyfriend Robert Graham to Ireland. He proposed to her in Dromoland Castle before they traveled to the old homestead in Co. Galway.
It wasn’t an easy trip, and while she made her way around the little house, she couldn’t bring herself to visit the main estate. “I’m a very emotional person and I’d already inflicted enough emotion on the residents,” she says. “Poor Bob had to witness a breakdown in the stable-yard. Awful. I had thought that we could creep in, that everyone would be at Mass. I was a wreck. So many memories…it’s a painful thing, particularly since so much has changed there.” The estate has since been bought by American entertainment impresario Merv Griffin and has been transformed into a hotel. ♦
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