Every painting tells a story and Ireland’s history can be seen in pictures at a show opening at the National Gallery in Dublin today. Creating History: Stories of Ireland in Art is the gallery’s principal contribution to this Decade of Centenaries. The 55 paintings on display date from the 17th to the 20th century and depict or were inspired by Irish history from the arrival of St. Patrick to the establishment of the Irish Free State.
Arranged thematically with sections entitled Testimony, Conflict, Assembly, Allegory and Lamentation, the exhibition features paintings from the permanent collection as well as work on loan from public and private collections in Ireland and overseas. Some, like William Turner De Lond’s George IV, King of England, entering Dublin, 1821 and Sir John Lavery’s The Ratification of the Irish Treaty in the English House of Lords, 1921, have been unseen in public for many years. Others, like Jan Wyck’s The Battle of the Boyne and Joseph Patrick Haverty’s, The Monster Meeting at Clifden, c.1844. have undergone extensive restoration specifically for this exhibition. Yet more, such as Francis Wheatley, Dublin Volunteers on College Green, 1779 and Edwin Hayes, The Emigrant Ship, 1853 will be familiar to regulars at the gallery. The exhibition, which is accompanied by a book with essays by Mary Jane Boland, Tom Dunne, R.F. Foster, Róisín Kennedy, Ruth Kenny and Emily Mark-FitzGerald and Brendan Rooney, runs until January 15 next.
The O’Connell Centenary Celebrations, 1875 by Charles Russell (1852–1910)
© National Gallery of Irelan
The Monster Meeting at Clifden, 1844 by Joseph Patrick Havery (1794-1864) © National Gallery of Irelan
