Drawing diaries of the islands

Seosamh Ó DΡlaigh at work in his studio and a sample of his work.

Áine Ryan

IT is a chronicle of island life from Purteen Harbour to Dugort Beach; the Quay at Clare Island to the philosopher Michael Joe in conversation in his cottage in the village of Ballytoughy Mór; the old tower on Inihbofin to boats at the East End Village. The pencil drawings and sketches, paintings and pictures in the newly published book, ‘Island Diaries’ by Seosamh Ó DΡlaigh, appear to capture the moment so casually that you are immediately part of it; breathing in the middle of the picture: participant rather than observer.
The pictorial narrative he creates in this book is deceptively casual as the artist himself explains: “I have always carried my sketchbook and watercolours, Working outdoors in all weathers, it was important to work quickly so as to capture the mood of a scene, for example, light, colour tone, making notes on colour and detail.”
In capturing the essence of the (often) fleeting moment – ‘Going to Midnight Mass’, ‘Achill Yawls’, ‘Bogs at Sliabh Mór’, ‘Stormbound on Clare Island’, ‘Cottages on the High Road’ – there must be an intensity of concentration while translating the minutiae of the scene onto the sketchpad.
Artist Seosamh Ó DΡlaigh has sailed the seas from Achill to Inishboffin and beyond for many decades. As Dr Paddy Lineen recalls in a note in the book, appended to a drawing of the Fastnet Rock: “In 1978 [he] sailed with my cousins and myself from the south of England to Achill on a 26 foot Westerly, ‘Eileen Achill’.….. We had put into the port of Baltimore in West Cork for refreshments and supplies and after the stopover Seosamh had felt his artistic soul stir and recorded some of the incidents in his notebooks and on camera, later to be converted into sketches or paintings as in this impressive drawing of the Fastnet Rock.”
However, it was his ‘great friends’, the late Robert Gallagher, of the Big House in Curraun and Brendan Fahy who accompanied him on many of his sailing and sketching voyages and escapades. Indeed, O DΡlaigh’s first introduction to Clare Island was aboard Gallagher’s yawl, The Marianina.
“We sailed to Clare Island from Achill to take part in the annual regatta. It was the start of a new adventure. I was immediately struck by the magic of the island and the ever changing light and atmosphere,” he writes.
Notes on a drawing of two yawls, on a ‘Calm Day’, explain that Tom and John O’Malley of Curraun take a tow-line from the Marianina to Clare Island. On the opposite page, there is a certain poignancy to a drawing of Michael Barrett’s thatched cottage in the island village of Gurteen. Barrett, one of Clare Island’s true gentlemen, was the last of a special trio made up of the late Chris O’Leary and Pat McNamara. Ní bhéidh a leithéid arís ann.   
Down the coast on Inishbofin, the East End village – with its higgledy-piggledy cottages and currachs. lobster pots and sails – is depicted from several perspectives.  The musical melding of fiddles and boxes, guitars and bodhrΡns at a mad seisiún of ceol agus craic in Murray’s Doonmore Hotel brings the elemental anarchy inside.       

Island Diaries is on sale in the DΡnlann Yawl Art Gallery, The Beehive, Achill, and The Bookshop, Westport. For more information, visit
www.achillpainting.com.

DΡnlann Yawl Art Gallery
DΡnlann Yawl Art Gallery and Painting School was established by Seosamh Ó DΡlaigh in 1985 in Dooega, Achill Island. Over the years, it has gone from strength to strength. The culmination of this success was the establishment in 1998 of Seosamh and Nora’s Art Gallery and Coffee Shop at their home in Owenduff, Tonragee, 6km from Achill Sound. Next to the Gallery is The Old Stable Studio, where Seosamh works and holds his painting courses.