Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART 9th December 2020

22 17 LETITIA MARION HAMILTON RHA (1878-1964) Roundstone Oil on Canvas, 50 x 60cm (19¾ x 23½’’) Signed The 1963 edition of the Automobile Association Road Book of Ireland tells us that Roundstone is ‘[a] busy Connemara fishing village, on the western side of Bertraghboy Bay’ with ‘a roomy, well-sheltered harbour which is almost landlocked.’ When Cloch na Rón, The Stone of the Seals, became Roundstone, some- thing was clearly lost in translation but the beauty and the charm of the place have never been lost. When Letitia Hamilton painted Roundstone, which she did a number of times, she captured Round- stone’s unique setting and beauty, unique in that it was founded by Alexander Nimmo, a Scottish engi- neer, who built roads and harbours along the west coast of Ireland in the 1820s. Nimmo, choosing the spot for its spectacular views, designed and created Roundstone’s harbour and, ever since, the village has been a favourite subject for artists including Paul Henry, Jack B Yeats, Gerard Dillon, Nano Reid. From Roundstone’s main street, bordering the sea, you can view the Maamturk mountains. From there, you can also see the Twelve Bens. William Makepeace Thackeray visited Roundstone while it was still being built and in his book, published as The Irish Sketch Book in 1843, he wryly noted that the Presbyterian chapel in Roundstone was big enough ‘to accommodate all the Presbyterians in Ireland’ and described the Franciscan monastery as ‘an unpretending little dwelling’. His eye was also captured by ‘[a] few figures at work in the bog-lands, a red petticoat passing here and there, a goat or two browsing among the stones, or a troop of whitey-brown children, who came out to gaze at the “car” form the chief society of the road’. Letitia Marion Hamilton, RHA, was born in 1878 in Hamwood House, Dunboyne, Co. Meath, built in 1779 by her ancestor Charles Hamilton. Though she studied under William Orpen, her travels in France, Bel- gium and Holland and the art she saw there influenced her more. In the 1920s Hamilton visited Italy and Yugoslavia but WWII kept her in Ireland and it was during that time that she began to paint Roundstone. In this particular work Hamilton captures the many delightful aspects of the place. The chosen perspec- tive, of the approach to the town, invites the viewer to follow the road and to enjoy the sea. The day is bright, the shadows suggest afternoon. Rows of houses on the side of the road are crowded together and the road, sea wall, harbour and sky share a muted palette. Clouds and street and buildings, in greys and pale beige, are rendered with those gentle, sensuous, impastoed brushstrokes and palette knife so distinctively Letitia Marion Hamilton. Brighter colours, the green among the rocks in the foreground, the darker green hill and trees behind St Mary’s Protestant church and the sea’s blue gradations and the small white waves gently breaking provide a lovely contrast and though it’s a calm, quiet scene there are some lively and busy touches. On the road through the village, a figure on a horse or donkey and two wooden horse-drawn carts create movement. One empty-looking cart is heading towards us, the other, piled high with turf, is heading up the hill. A lightly-sketched figure, a child probably, is seen on the right by the second cart. In the bay the figure in the row boat provides more movement and the eye is here drawn in a different direction. Inish- nee island in Roundstone bay is briefly glimpsed and, beyond that, a stretch of water and, in the distance, on the horizon, more of the County Galway coastline. Hamilton frequently painted in a little van and for this scene it seems she is parked by the old dispensary house, renamed The Fort, on the way into Roundstone where Kate O’Brien lived in the 1950s, later Sting, and the house is now owned by Bill Whelan who says that in Roundstone you’re ‘so much more conscious of things like the tides and sunrise and sunset’. Over the years Roundstone has always attracted creative individuals and this work by LMH, undated, like much of Hamilton’s work, but most likely from the 1940s, captures tide and sunshine and reminds us of Roundstone’s unique attractiveness then. And now. Niall MacMonagle October 2020 € 12,000 - 16,000