FitzGerald (1937–2011), the twenty-ninth and last Knight of Glin. He worked in the furniture department of the Victoria & Albert Museum and returned to Ireland in the 1980s, when he became Christie’s Irish representative. Later President of the Irish Georgian Society.
26.Graduate of UCD and Cambridge, he became a lecturer in the Trinity History of Art Department in 1973. Author of James Gandon (1985) and Public Architecture in Ireland, 1680–1760 (2001).
27.An English architectural historian who came to Belfast in 1970 as a research assistant to Alistair Rowan on the Buildings of Ireland project. Later attached to the Institute of Irish Studies in Belfast and active in the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society. He published widely on Belfast architecture in the Victorian period. From the mid-1980s, National Trust curator for north-east England.
28.A Dutch psychiatrist, graduate of the Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. He came to Ireland about this time (1973) and developed a serious interest in seventeenth-century Irish architecture and researched assiduously (and widely), resulting in his Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Ireland, 1600–1720 (1981).
29.Later professor of the history of art at the National College of Art and Design. He has published extensively on the history of Irish sculpture, painting, design and art education.
30.Lecturer in the history of art in UCD, and authority on Sarah Purser.
31.(1941–2008). She joined the National Museum of Ireland (NMI) in 1970 and became a leading authority on Irish decorative arts, and Irish dress and costume in particular. Briefly Director of the Hunt Museum, she became Keeper of the NMI Art & Industry Division. Author of Dress in Ireland (1989). Obituary, Irish Independent, 23 March 2008.
CHAPTER 8
DUBLIN DIARY 1, 1973
I always keep a pocket-diary where I occasionally enter comments about places I have been or people I have met and I have referred to these diaries throughout these Memories. When I worked in an office, I naturally had an Appointments Diary and, in writing the chapter about my time as Director of the National Gallery, I have used those diaries as aides-memoires. But I have never actually written a diary except for about six months in 1973. At the time I was working in the National Gallery of Ireland and living on Rathgar Road in Dublin. It was a period when I was enjoying making friends in the Dublin art world and, in my first formal job, embarking on my own career.
9 January 1973: Today James White was all fussed as Father Barrett1 wrote a rude letter saying he wanted to resign from the Association of Irish Art Historians (of which I am Secretary) because the meetings were never held at a time when he could attend. Also complaining that I had not notified him of the correct date of the meeting; which was a lie.
Lunch at Ted Smyth’s.2 Odd lunch of cheese and bread and stuff of which I got very little even though I was hungry. A lot of fresh young Third Secretaries from Foreign Affairs including quite a nice girl called Clare somebody.3 Charles Lysaght,4 of whom I had heard much also there and Brian McCarthy5 whom I had only met once before. He works in Trinity Library and is v. unpopular in many quarters. He was pleasant to me though.
Tonight Phil McMaster and Bibi Plunkett called for about an hour. Both very difficult to talk to. I suspect because it is more Bohemian not to talk. She called my back room Rothschild Green – as it is almost the same colour as a Rothschild flat in London. She also said that Aggie Leslie,6 who now lives with Maurice Craig,7 claims to have been the first woman to appear nude on the London stage – and move. A good story at any rate. Aunt Polly rang to ask me what issue of Country Life my article had appeared in. Uncle Hubert8 came to the Gallery with Godfrey and Cecil so I invited them to have tea.
10 January: Tonight Caroline and Andrew O’Connor who is a restorer in the Gallery invited me to dinner to meet his father, Patrick O’Connor,9 as I am to research the grandfather, Andrew O’Connor the sculptor. PO’C has something of a scandalous reputation in Dublin and his name is not popular with everyone as he reputedly smuggled, or some such, Guardi pictures out of Bantry House at the time that he was Curator of the Municipal Gallery. I knew I would be in for some treats if I handled him properly. He is very charming and jolly – looking the part with a longish beard of grey and flowing hair. He is quite a raconteur but sometimes incredibly vulgar and uses atrocious language but for all that v. good company. He overestimates the importance of everything – including himself. A picture is always a £20 picture or else a Velázquez. And, supposedly, Benedict Nicolson10 or Christopher Wright11 have never published anything without PO’C seeing it first and giving his advice. He was divorced a month ago in Tunbridge Wells. I asked him if he had had to spend a night in a Brighton hotel with a chambermaid and a private detective at the keyhole, but he said he didn’t bother with any of that nonsense. I think his wife was called Anne and she apparently knew all sorts of people and was beloved by a lot of homosexual young men including John Gielgud, whom I would hardly refer to as young.
PO’C talked about his appointment to the Municipal. Patrick Kavanagh the poet needed cash and decided to go for the job. PO’C coached him – ‘there are thirty-nine Lane pictures, etc.’ – for the interview. James White was also a candidate. But due to some trickery the first interview and appointment was cancelled. For the second interview, PO’C decided to go for the job himself as he needed cash too. Bodkin12 was on the interviewing committee and others whom I can’t remember. They asked him how many Lane Pictures there were: thirty-nine; name five of them, which PO’C did – the most obscure five. A Dublin Corporation man asked ‘what about Manet’s Concert aux Tuileries?’ PO’C explained, ‘lovely picture, but not a Lane Picture’.13 They asked him to read a passage in French which they suspected all good curators should be able to speak. PO’C of course was fluent having been brought up in France. Anyway, he got the job, hands down, and Patrick Kavanagh remained penniless. He spoke of Terence de Vere White. At one time PO’C had put forward a picture of some lady’s ‘ass’ nude by Orpen for the Friends of the National Collections to buy at £200. TdeVW pointed out that the Municipal Gallery already had lots of Orpens and turned the picture down. Lady Bare-ass (in fact Lady Glenavy) promptly sold the picture to America at a fantastic sum.
He brought up the subject of the Guardi paintings himself. He was approached by the Bank of Ireland (the Bantry House Trustees) to buy the pictures which he did with advice as to fair prices, etc. from both Christie’s and Sotheby’s and London dealers. He sold the pictures (save three) through the London dealer David Carritt to ‘a man called Merton’. Merton caught up with Mrs Shelswell White’s son and between them they said to PO’C ‘if you don’t give us the other three for nothing, we’ll ruin your career’ which they did by a campaign of publicity and blackmail.14
While at the Municipal, he sought a meeting with Sir Phillip Hendy, then Director of the London National Gallery, and made an agreement that England could keep all of the Lane Pictures and he would select thirty-nine pictures from the London NG as a swap. This Hendy agreed to, and the Duke of Wellington, who was Chairman of the committee for the Lane Pictures, also agreed as he, the Duke, thought the Lane Pictures much too good for Ireland and that no Irishman could make a sensible choice. PO’C picked the cream from the London NG collection and came back to Dublin and proposed the exchange to Dublin Corporation who wouldn’t agree to it saying that they wanted their Impressionist paintings. I said I felt that Dublin should never ever get even a glimpse of the Lane Pictures as their behaviour was at all times disgraceful and they didn’t deserve them. He agreed with me. Lord Moyne15 was always a great friend of his so when Desmond and Mariga Guinness, newly married, first came to Dublin pretending to be penniless, PO’C took them under his wing. DG didn’t know what he wanted to do at this time. They travelled the country together
