Artist recreates Harry Clarke's stained glass at Honan as currach painting  

Kathleen Furey’s interpretation of Clarke’s St Gobnait window echoes the intricate bee motifs, and will be on display in Baile Mhúirne

Kathleen Furey and her currach piece inspired by Harry Clarke. Picture: Rynes Walker

Summers spent on the Aran island of Inis Oírr are believed to have inspired one of Harry Clarke’s most celebrated works, his striking stained-glass window in the Honan Chapel at UCC, depicting the life of Saint Gobnait.

Clarke’s creative process became an artwork in its own right as the subject of the 1917 painting Thinking Out Gobnet, by Seán Keating, his companion during frequent stays on the island. Keating, whose War of Independence study Men of the South hangs in Cork’s Crawford Art Gallery, portrayed Clarke in Thinking Out Gobnet pondering his Honan Chapel commission among the ruins of St Gobnait’s church on Inis Oírr.

A 6th century saint, Gobnait herself fled to the island following a family feud and is reputed to have seen a vision while there, instructing her to go in search of the place of her resurrection, which would be found where she saw nine white deer.

Likely embarking on her voyage in a predecessor of the currachs with which the Aran Islands are now synonymous, she is thought to have journeyed through Kerry, Cork, and Waterford before spying the requisite nine white deer in Baile Mhúirne, where she established her religious settlement, becoming venerated as patron saint of bees.

Fifteen centuries after her arrival in Baile Mhúirne, devotion to Gobnait remains strong in the Cork village which this month sees a renewal of the Inis Oírr connection with the coming of a Culture Night art installation.

Using a 6ft currach as her artistic canvas, Galway artist Kathleen Furey’s interpretation of Clarke’s St Gobnait window echoes the intricate bee motifs, nine white deer, and colourful bejewelled gown of the stained-glass original, painted onto the boat’s exterior.

Kathleen Furey and her currach piece inspired by Harry Clarke. Picture: Rynes Walker

“During the summer of 2021 I was invited to be part of a project which started out on Inis Oírr and was devised by Dara McGee, the artistic director of Áras Éanna, the arts centre on the island,” says Oughterard-based Furey. 

“They were celebrating their 21st anniversary and he came up with the idea that 21 artists could paint a currach for an exhibition.” 

With each artist given free rein on subject matter for the outdoor exhibition, Furey began researching past visits to the island by fellow artists and “Harry Clarke’s name kept coming up”, she says. “He had spent six summers on Inis Oírr and had honeymooned there with his wife, an artist called Margaret Crilley.

“Around that time he was working on a commission for the stained glass windows for the Honan Chapel and when he went back to Dublin he worked on the St Gobnait window.” However, she points out, “even though the window was inspired on the island it never was seen there”.

“People on the Aran Islands hadn’t seen that window unless they had travelled to Cork so I loved the idea of bringing the imagery back to Inis Oírr so that people could come and see what was inspired by the island.”

Furey, who has studied stained-glass making, says: “It was a question of transferring that technique to a painting… faithfully depicted the window’s image, using paint to capture the leading technique that would have been used to create the original.”

The next step of the currach’s journey, to St Gobnait’s adopted home and final resting place in Baile Mhúirne, came thanks to Killarney artist Dolores Lyne, a guiding light in the original Inis Oírr project.

She visited Baile Mhúirne on St Gobnait’s feast day in February, when a small ancient statue of the saint is made available in the parish church to pilgrims, who measure lengths of ribbon, known as St Abbie’s or St Gobnait’s Measure, against it in order to avail of the statue’s reputed healing powers.

Lyne — who is hosting a Culture Night exhibition of her own in Baile Mhúirne library, featuring her artworks based on letters written by her grand-uncle General Liam Lynch during the War of Independence and Civil War — presented her long-time artistic collaborator Furey with a St Abbie’s Measure ribbon and encouraged her to bring the St Gobnait currach to Baile Mhúirne.

The statue of Saint Gobnait, normally reserved for saint’s days, will be on public display in Baile Mhúirne church as Furey’s currach forms the centrepiece of a Culture Night event featuring Ceolchoirm Ghobnatan, a concert by traditional music group Dúil Mhúscraí and Aisling Gheal sean-nós singers.

• St Gobnait’s Journey: St Gobnait’s Church, Baile Mhúirne, 6pm-8.30pm, September 23, with introductory talk 7.15pm and Ceolchoirm Ghobnatan 7.30pm-8.30pm. Admission free. See: culturenightcorkcounty.ie