Upon the Wild Waves

I was delighted that Dr Pádraic Whyte, and Dr. Lydia Ferguson of Trinity College Dublin, chose my image from "The Names Upon The Harp" for the poster of their major exhibition in the beautiful Long Room in Trinity.

"Upon the Wild Waves: a Journey through Myth in Children’s Books" will be on display in the Long Room, Trinity College Library from 23 October 2014 until April 2015. The exhibition aims to serve as a celebration of the wealth of children’s literature held in the Library. Drawing upon material published over several centuries, the exhibition will explore some of the varying ways in which writers and illustrators have used myth to engage younger readers, from creation myths of Polynesia and tales of Greek Gods to Biblical myths and Celtic legends.

"The Country of the Young: interpretations of youth and childhood in Irish culture"

The Four Courts Press have just published this very interesting book:"The Country of the Young: interpretations of youth and childhood in Irish culture"

I was honoured that Kelly Matthews (co-editor with John Countryman) asked to use a detail of this rough I did for my Children of Lir stamp for the cover.


Here's the blurb:"Throughout the history of modern Ireland, cultural representations of youth and childhood have served as focal points for discussions of social and political issues. Topics for the essays in this collection range from Famine-era women’s autobiographies to filmic portrayals of post-Good Friday Northern Ireland; from considerations of Patrick Pearse and Máirín Cregan to Anne Enright and Claire Keegan. The result is a complex and provocative view of childhood experiences in modern Ireland, and of the ways in which youth and childhood have been interpreted in the work of Irish writers, politicians, dramatists and filmmakers."

The Children of Lir; Unpublished Stamp Designs

I think these pictures, and other roughs I posted earlier, give a good idea of my stamp design process.

I decided against using the full image of the swan children of Lir sheltering from the storm and went for the transformation scene instead. But I was able to adapt the first design for use as a decorative panel on the stamp sheet.

Amongst some old roughs I found the mock-up below where I was considering the tragic image of the old children of Lir from The Names upon the Harp. 

It makes a nice companion piece to the scene of the four of them huddling together as swans.

The Country of the Young

I was recently asked to hunt out this rough I did several years ago for a stamp design based on "The Children of Lir".
The rough, complete with sticky tape and photocopied serrated edges, will be used on the cover of a book of academic essays edited by John Countryman and Kelly Matthews.
It is called "The Country of the Young: Interpretations of Youth and Childhood in Irish Culture" and publication by Four Courts Press is in April or May.
Below is the finished artwork that I did for the An Post stamp design.

The Children of Lir

There's a sweet sadness when a favourite painting finds a new home.
This was an important picture for me in The Names Upon The Harp by Marie Heaney.
It illustrates the story of The Children of Lir, which is one of the three sorrows of Irish storytelling.
The children have a very bad time at the hands of their step-mother, and are turned into swans for nine hundred years.
At the end of which time they are turned back into humans, but they die soon after.
I chose to illustrate the scene where the four children, now old, old people, are laid to rest altogether in one grave.
It's a story I had interpreted once before as a postage stamp.

"The Children of Lir" and my other stamp designs

I'm trying to get the Stamps page on my website sorted and here are some of the images that will be going up there.
The first set I did were two mythological scenes.


This one shows the Children of Lir who were turned into swans by their wicked step mother. The rough is above and here is the finished artwork.

This was in the days before I had a computer and I had to painstakingly paint the lettering onto an acetate overlay. Those were the days.