Golden Clan
book by John Corry
Golden Clan is a non-fiction account of the Murray/ Mc Donnell family of New York,
by John Corry, Golden Clan: The Murrays, the McDonnells, & the Irish American Aristocracy, Houghton Mifflin Co.; Boston, 1977. This followed an earlier book by noted chronicler-of-the-wealthy (Our Crowd, The Grandes Dames) Stephen Birmingham Real Lace: America's Irish Rich HarperCollins New York: 1973 in which this family were also the main subjects.
The Murray/ Mc Donnell clan were the children and grandchildren of inventor Thomas E. Murray, an associate of Thomas Edison's, who was an early summer resident of Southampton, Long Island, New York . Due to their wealth, good looks, and sheer size (one branch, the James Mc Donnells, had 14 children; another, the Thomas E. Murray Jr.s, had 11) they were frequently covered in the social news of the New York press, particularly in the Hearst newspapers by gossip columnist 'Cholly Knickerbocker'. Public interest increased when one Mc Donnell married Henry Ford II, and a Murray cousin Alfred G. Vanderbilt II. Unlike the Kennedy family, with whom several of the Mc Donnells were close, none of the family ran for public office. The eldest son of the patriarch- Thomas E. Murray, Jr., was appointed by President Truman to the United States Atomic Energy Commission and his brother John 'Jack' Murray to the Port Authority of New York by Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt. The McDonnell triplex at 910 Fifth Avenue in New York was reputedly the largest in the city. The clan were considered pillars of the New York Archdiocese, and were very close to Cardinal Spellman and Bishop Fulton J. Sheen; when Clare Boothe Luce converted to Catholicism, Bishop Sheen suggested that Anna Murray Mc Donnell serve as her godmother.
The family has pretty much faded from the public spotlight since the collapse of Mc Donnell & Co., the family stock brokerage firm under T. Murray Mc Donnell in 1970. Several family members such as Catherine Murray di Montezemolo were still prominent in Southampton society at the beginning of the 21st Century, and they continued to intermarry with other prominent Catholic families.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Golden Clan” is book by John Corry. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Golden, Clan and book, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “book by John Corry” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5579280. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1977, 1973 and 1970.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Golden Clan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.