34
When Paul Henry first settled on Achill Island, in 1910, it was
the people of the island going about their everyday lives that
captured his interest. The pictures he produced at the time were
an equivalent in the visual arts of the work that John Synge had
done in literary terms. In the words of Belfast’s Northern Whig
newspaper (13 March 1911), Henry had ‘flung away the accepted
formulas as boldly as Synge’ did in drama. But from about 1915-
16 onwards the landscape of Achill—and of the area around Bal-
lycroy, Bangor Erris and Pollatomish in north County Mayo,
where from 1917 he acted as a Paymaster for the Congested Dis-
tricts Board—became his subject matter and increasingly figures
are rarer in his work. His duties for the Board were not onerous,
but they allowed him to travel more widely than would otherwise
have been possible.[*] Only occasionally thereafter are figures
the central element in his compositions. Thus The Lobster Fisher
at Dusk is unusual in the role occupied by the lobster fisherman.
The composition of
The Lobster Fisher at Dusk
is set down with
an almost graphic emphasis on simplified forms, notably those
in the sky, which characterizes the work. Judged stylistical-
ly, it must date to around 1920-1. It is a companion picture to
The Lobster Fisher at Dawn
(private collection, illustrated Ken-
nedy, 2007, pl. 553), in which the lone fisherman rows his cur-
ragh out to the fishing grounds, as well as a number of other
pictures by Henry which are similar in theme and arrangement.
The simple elegance of the Post-Impressionist-inspired com-
position and the monochromatic palette demonstrate Henry’s
confidence and technical dexterity in this period, while the sub-
tlety of the composition gains a theatrical touch from the low
horizon which is broken by the upward thrust of the figure, the
prow of the boat and the massing of the rocks in the foreground.
The direct painting to the canvas, with little or no underpaint-
ing or revision, recalls Whistler’s dictum to his pupils, of which
Henry was one, that one should work with precision and re-
solve issues in one’s mind before committing them to canvas.
Henry McDermot, a Galway man, who first owned the paint-
ing, was a patron of Paul Henry, whose portrait Henry made in
charcoal in the early 1920s (for an illustration of the portrait see
Kennedy, 2007, catalogue number 218. The original drawing is in
the National Gallery of Ireland, 7604). Henry (‘Hal’) McDermot,
K.C. (1873-1953), was the son of Hugh Hyacinth, The McDer-
mot, Prince of Coolavin (1834-1904), Sligo, and Attorney Gen-
eral for Ireland 1892-5. Having ceased practising the law, Henry
McDermot later returned to it, in the 1920s, working as a solicitor
in the firm of McDermot & Allen in Galway. His brother, Frank,
was a founder of the National Centre Party (later Fine Gael).
[*] For an account of his work with the Congested Dis-
tricts Board see Paul Henry,
An Irish Portrait,
1951, pp. 83-4.
Dr. S.B.Kennedy
