BIO

I was awarded a City of Dublin Corporation Scholarship at 11 years of age. Having joined The Workers Party at the formation stage in 1969, I became a member of the Gardiner Row cumann with Tony Gregory, TD for Dublin North Inner City, and Thomas McGiolla, former President of the Workers Party, and former Lord Mayor of Dublin. I left because it wasn’t a democratic party. A sit-in was organised to demonstrate against the Dept. of Foreign Affairs. Myself and some activists took over one of the offices (without hurting anyone) and sat together on the floor after ringing the media to give them our reason for being there and to get some coverage of the protest. We were arrested and brought to Mountjoy where we awaited bail. I spent the night there in the Womens’ Prison.

Copenhagen became my home in 1973, where I met genuine people from all over the world, and lived on an old abandoned ship, the St. Lawrence.

At the age of thirty-three, the visual arts made an appearance in my life, and I began studying advanced life drawing with Joanna Robertson in NCAD, and graduated from TCD in History of European Painting.

While living in Skerries I joined an a capella harmony group and we sang in local venues. It gave me a varied interest in music. I also joined the Skerries Art Workshop, some of whose artists were exhibiting in the RHA.

In 1991 I had a Revelation about Jesus the King of France, and The Apocalyptic message from Saint John’s Book of Revelation, through Botticelli’s message in the painting Mystic Nativity, to Dali’s Christ of Saint John of the Cross, and last of all my Jesus Is The King of France and The Mystical Crucifixion of St. John about the Apocalypse.

Shortly afterwards I became Resident Artist of Ardgillan Castle. (REM have played there) My studio was in the East Tower. The grounds of the Parkland were set out beautifully in meadows. The opportunity presented itself to have some one-man shows of my paintings in the Castle, and I also gave life drawing classes to local residents including a lecturer in architecture in Bolton Street, a female engineer, and artists who lived locally and wanted to brush up their skills. I was invited to have some exhibitions there and I exhibited in the Emer Mullins Gallery and the Daffodil Gallery also.

I took up photography as a practice after moving house in 2007 and began experimenting with photomontage and editing. The Gallery of Photography Ireland have exhibited some of my videos and photographs online. I enjoy photography very much and I’m still deeply interested in international photographers both in black and white and colour, especially Americans like Ed Freeman.

Having been exiled to Spain in 2017 with my partner due to the housing crisis in Ireland, I made my home there for five or six years, all the while using Social Media to keep in touch with home, and attempting to make a contribution to cultura and things of the moment online. There’s an important connection to Salvador Dali there.

I’m still a bit of a revolutionary at heart, sometimes it seems to me that things aren’t right somehow. I’m still working as an nature lover, especially on behalf of threatened bees, skylarks and
meadows.