Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 30 June 2011

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 261)

The Things of the Past

“We have a glorious country, and, if we looked to the things of the past, we would see the things of the future. Become more national and you will become more international.” Irish Press reporter quoting Soirle MacCana, 31 March, 1967).

A few weeks ago, the column commented on the Shrine of the Holy Rosary on the Lee Road. Diarmuid MacCana emailed me to say his father Soirle MacCana (1901 – 1975) designed the shrine and stations in 1951 for the opening in August 1952. Soirle, at the time of the shrine’s construction, was Principal of the Cork Crawford School of Art and an artist and designer of renown in his own right.

An obituary in the Irish Independent on 26 November 1975 notes that Soirle MacCana was born in Belfast in 1901. He was apprenticed to a textile designer. He was involved in the War of Independence and was an officer in the old Irish Republican Army. He was arrested in Cavan in 1921 and was sentenced to death. However his life was spared when the truce was declared. In his spare time, he attended Belfast College of Art and won the Sorella Scholarship in 1923. In the following year, he taught at the Belfast College and then won another scholarship, ‘Dunville’ Art Scholarship, which enabled him to study at the Royal College of Art in London for three years. He graduated there in 1927. He also studied in Paris. He returned to Ireland in 1929, went to Galway to teach in the Technical Institute and in 1934 he was appointed an art inspector in Dublin.

In 1937 he became principal of the Crawford School of Art in Cork, a position he held with distinction until his retirement in 1967. In a Cork Art Galleries Catalogue from 1958, he is noted as a painter of portraits, figure objects and landscapes and mural decorations. He worked in a variety of media- oil, watercolour and tempera, etching and engraving. He exhibited at the Belfast Arts Society, the Ulster Arts Club, the RHA (in 1935, 1943, 1945-46) and at the International Society of Painters, Sculptors and Engravers.

In a book entitled Irish Craftsmanship, published in 1950 by the Irish Hospital Trusts, Soirle published a series of drawings and historical data covering ten Irish crafts. He dealt with the history of the craftsmanship in this country from the Early Bronze Age to the present century. He focused in particular on the Celtic decorative arts and decoration and ornament. Commenting in his foreword, he noted “For me it was a labour of love, feeling as I did, that would stimulate, not only interest in Irish Craftsmanship, but be an incentive to others to continue where I left off. At the present stage of our economy, there is need for accurate research, publication and utilization of the wealth of our glorious heritage in Art and Craftsmanship, so that, through a wider knowledge and just pride in our artistic achievements in the past, we may be encouraged in our efforts to continue in our efforts to continue the work so ably begun.”

Mr. James White, Director of the National Gallery, at the opening of a retrospective exhibition on Soirle’s MacCana’s work in 1967, as part of the Munster Fine Arts display, commented that the artist was “the creator of dreams who challenged us to new ideas. He provided the scientist with new possibilities, the designer with new shapes, and the home with new proportions.” In the Crawford Art Gallery’s Collection, there are five pieces of Soirle’s work, four of which are now on display in the Gibson Gallery. The five pieces are entitled (a) Light and Shade, Youghal, (b) Near Ardmore, Co. Waterford, (c) Nativity, (d) Margadh an Eisc, Gallimh and (e) the Holy Family. He also painted several of the portraits of past Presidents of UCC and these are on display in the Aula Maxima in UCC.

The shrine of the Holy Rosary on the Lee Road was sculpted to Soirle’s designs by the well known Broe family of sculptors in Dublin. This corrects my original suggestion of a Seamus Murphy work. Indeed it is interesting to see Leo Broe completing this work in Cork despite the strong sculptural presence by Seamus Murphy at the time. Baptised Bernard Joseph, Leo Broe was born in Stillorgan Dublin on 16 April 1899 and was the father of Irish sculptor, Desmond Broe. He was educated at the North Monastery, Cork. Leo studied sculpture under Oliver Sheppard at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art and was the owner of the firm, Leo Broe and Sons, sculptors, which operated from 94 Harold’s Cross Road, Dublin. Specialising in figure-carving, much of Broe’s time was taken up with ecclesiastical work for Dublin churches, along with many IRA memorials in provincial districts.

Leo Broe exhibited in all the annual exhibitions of the Institute of the Sculptors of Ireland between the years 1953 and 1957 and in the international exhibition at the Dublin Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in 1959, when he was the Institute’s president. Accepting numerous private and public commissions, Broe is remembered for his numerous sculptures of IRA volunteers, public personalities such as Countess Markievicz and Patrick Pearse and religious saints such as St Augustine and St Francis and St Clare.

To be continued…

I’m still trying to source any memories of the Lee Baths, if anyone can help, Kieran 087 6553389.

Captions:

597a. Montage from Soirle MacCana’s Book, Irish Craftsmanship (1950) (source: Boole Library, UCC)

597b. Detail on Shrine of the Holy Rosary, Lee Road, Cork (picture: Kieran McCarthy)

597c. Soirle MaCana (picture: MacCana family)