As Europe confronts its current refugee crisis, Kathryn Milligan looks back to 1916 when a Belgian artist was one of the 2,300 Belgian refugees who sought shelter in Ireland.
The ongoing refugee crisis has given rise to a renewed interest in the history of migration to Ireland. Successive waves of immigration have influenced all aspects of life on this island, including the artistic sphere. Records of this history can be found tucked away in different institutional and archival collections, as can be seen in the case of Edmond Delrenne (fl. 1915 – 1918). In 1982, a small watercolour showing the ruins of the GPO after the Easter Rising was presented to the National Gallery of Ireland (Fig 1). It was, as a letter offering the work to the institution noted, by ‘a Belgian artist, a refugee from the German invasion in 1914.’1 In recent years, a small number of additional works by this little-known artist have appeared in auction rooms, all depicting the ruined city of 1916. These works, predominantly watercolours, form an interesting and rare corpus on this theme. With the centenary of the Easter Rising approaching, and commemorations of the First World War already underway, it is timely to consider the arrival of Belgian refugees in Ireland, and how this artist, fleeing the devastating onset of war, came to record a seminal moment in Irish history.
Peter Murray reflects on the cool Nordic aesthetic of Patricia Burns whose work is on view in January at the Taylor Galleries, Dublin.
Recent excavations at Rathfarnham Castle have brought the former inhabitants into focus, prompting Simon Loftus to recall some vivid episodes from the family’s history.
Hilary Pyle takes a fresh look at John Butler Yeats, the patriarch of Ireland’s leading artistic family.