Michael Waldron remembers Cork’s Munster Fine Art Club (1920–1988), which exhibited the work of local artists and Irish artists with national and international reputations
On a mid-October night in 1921, during the War of Independence in Ireland, two men inside the Crawford Municipal School of Art in Emmet Place in Cork hear the marching steps of a Black and Tans patrol outside, which is soon followed by loud banging on the front door. A curfew is in place. After an anxious interval, the persistent patrol leader is permitted entry and he stands amidst paintings and sculptures arrayed on the floor. The two men, Hugh C Charde and Timothy J O’Leary, are promptly escorted from the premises, hurried into a lorry and taken to nearby Victoria Barracks for questioning. O’Leary is released with a warning, Charde held overnight. Suspicious meetings have been taking place. They are under surveillance.
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