Louis le Brocquy’s 90th year culminates this month with an exhibition of eight new paintings at Gimpel Fils Gallery in London; Medb Ruane gives her reaction after a private viewing in Dublin

What is this thing called love? On a crisp Monday morning in Dublin’s Kildare Street, Pat Taylor carries the good chair into a quiet room at Taylor Galleries, the better for me to sit and look at Louis le Brocquy’s new paintings. Eight canvases pause there, set to leave for Gimpel Fils Gallery in London where they’ll hang from 24 November, opening just two weeks after le Brocquy’s 90th birthday on the 10th