Mystery of identity of Achill 'Seated Lady' in Henry portrait solved

A MYSTERY behind the identity of a woman whose portrait was painted by Scottish-born artist Grace Henry during her residence in Achill over 100 years ago has been solved.

The painting entitled 'Seated Lady' which was sold at an auction at Adam's in Dublin for €3,800 at the end of September was painted by Grace Henry while she was a resident on Achill Island from 1910 to 1919 along with her husband and artist, Paul Henry.

The identity of the lady in the painting was unknown to the organisers of the auction but has now been identified as Mrs Emily Weddall, a founding member of Scoil Acla in 1910 and an early champion of the Gaelic League.

The identification was made by writer Mary J Murphy who claimed she knew immediately after coming across the portrait last week that it was Emily Weddall.

“Although the woman in the painting was unnamed, I knew that I had seen her - and it - before, some 14 years ago, and had actually held the small portrait in my hands.

“Every atom in me screamed aloud that I knew exactly who the imperious Achill woman in the black sou'wester with the dazzling stare was, the same woman who also features with many others well known to the island in the huge, famous 1913 Gaelic League Galway Town Hall photo,” she said.

Mary is the biographer of 'Achill's Eva O'Flaherty', the Caherlistrane native who made Achill her home at the early part of the 20th century and founded the St Colman Knitting Industries on the island.

Galway-based solicitor William Comerford was Eva O'Flaherty's solicitor and Mary visited his son Henry who was also a practising solicitor during her research on the book in 2009.

“Whilst chatting to Henry Comerford in his home about O’Flaherty and her famous Achill artist-friends, he took a small painting off his wall, told me who the woman in black was, and proceeded to inform me that it was a Grace Henry original,” she said adding that the painting was a wedding present from his aunt Doll Comerford who was the honourary secretary of the Tuam Art Club in 1943, with whom Grace and Paul Henry exhibited.

“In his own typed words in a follow-up ’09 letter Henry described the painting in very great detail, and explained how he had only managed to finally identify the woman in the picture in 2005, thanks to Elizabeth Barrett of the Bervie guesthouse, with whom he was then staying. There, he came across a book about the founding of Scoil Acla by Isolde Ní Dheirig, and his mysterious woman finally became known to him,” she added.

Mary explained she contacted her friend Maria Gillen, whose mother was from Achill, who is writing the biography of Emily Weddall, and she affirmed her belief regarding the name of the 'seated lady'.

Last week, Adam's confirmed that the painting in question had indeed been in the ownership of Henry Comerford, who passed away in 2016, and Mary is now confident that the lady is Emily Weddall.

“It is none other than the magnificent Mrs Emily Weddall, another audacious island heroine and the prime mover behind the founding of the world famous Scoil Acla in 1910. An intrepid traveller to Russia in the early 1900s, wife of a globe-trotting sea caption, prisoner in her time, champion of the early Gaelic League, and the person who donated her hall in Achill to Eva to set up St Colman's Knitting Industries, Emily is now immortalised in paint forever.

“Thanks to the gifted hands of Grace Mitchell Henry, an Achill resident herself between 1910 and 1919, Emily Arabella Maynard Burke Weddall’s legacy - and likeness - is copper-fastened indisputably into island lore,” she stated.