Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART 1st June 2022

1 I am grateful to Kevin V. Mulligan for reading and offering helpful comments on a draft of this text and also to Finola O’Kane for discussions on William Ashford and Dublin Bay going back many years. For the subject in general see Richard Nairn, David Jeffrey, Rob Goodbody, Dublin Bay, nature and history (Cork, 2017). 2 David Dickson, Dublin, The making of a capital city (London, 2014) pp. 1-2. 3 ‘A Tour from London to Dublin and some other parts of Ireland; viz the counties of Kildare and Wicklow made in the summer of 1797’, The monthly magazine , vol. iv (Jan. 1798) p. 17. 4 Raymond Gillespie, ‘Describing Dublin: Francis Place’s visit, 1698-99’, in Adele M. Dalsimer and Nancy Netzer (eds), Visualizing Ireland, national identity and pictorial tradition (Boston and London, 1993) pp. 99-117. 5 See Nicola Figgis and Brendan Rooney, Irish paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland, volume 1 (Dublin, 2001) pp. 34-35. 6 [Thomas Campbell], A philosophical survey of the south of Ireland in a series of letters to John Watkinson, MD (London, 1777) p. 2. 7 Fintan Cullen, Visual Politics. The Representation of Ireland 1750-1930 (Cork, 1997) pp. 17-18. 8 Campbell, A philosophical survey , p. 5. 9 Jonathan Fisher, Scenery of Ireland (London, 1795), cited Finola O’Kane, ‘”The appearance of a continued city”; Dublin’s Georgian suburbia’, in Gillian O’Brien and Finola O’Kane (eds), Georgian Dublin (Dublin, 2008) p. 110. 10 In general see Michael Branagan, Dublin Moving East 1708-1844 (Dublin, 2020). A quite different topographical tradition also existed, zooming in to the individual streetscape rather than presenting a panorama, and often focusing on notable public buildings. This developed from Francis Wheatley’s portrayal of the volunteers at College Green (1779-80, National Gallery of Ireland) into the well-known depictions of the city by Thomas Malton (1748-1804) and Samuel Frederick Brocas (1792-1847), for which see the discussion in Kevin O’Neill, ‘Looking at the pictures: art and artfulness in colonial Ireland)’ in Dalsimer and Netzer, Visualizing Ireland , pp. 55-70. For some nineteenth- and early twentieth-century portrayals of Dublin see Kathryn Milligan, Painting Dublin, 1886-1949, visualising a changing city (Manchester, 2020). 11 There is a large literature on the subject but see in particular, Edward McParland, ‘Strategy in the planning of Dublin, 1750-1800’, in Paul Butel and L.M. Cullen, Cities and merchants: French and Irish perspectives on urban development, 1500-1900 (Dublin, 1986) pp. 97-107; Edel Sheridan, ‘Designing the capital city, Dublin c. 1660-1810’, in Joseph Brady and Anngret Simms (eds), Dublin through space and time (c. 1900-1900) (Dublin, 2001) pp. 66-136; James Kelly, Representations of the Revenue Commissioners with respect to a “New Custom House” in Dublin, 1771-1781’, Irish architectural and decorative studies , vol. xxi (2018) pp. 136-60. 12 The Dublin Evening Post 1790, Cited Edward McParland, James Gandon, Vitruvius Hibernicus , Issue 24 of studies in architecture (London, 1985) p. 71. 13 Finola O’Kane, William Ashford’s Mount Merrion, The absent point of view (Tralee, 2013) p. 21. For the development of Dublin Bay’s coastal villages from Blackrock to Clontarf, often associated with the attractions of sea swimming, see Diarmuid Ó Gráda, Georgian Dublin, the forces that shaped the city (Cork, 2015) pp. 90-101. 14 O’Kane, William Ashford’s Mount Merrion , p. 22. 15 John Rocque, ‘To the public’ in his Exact survey of the city and suburbs of Dublin (1756). 16 W.S. Lewis and R.S. Brown (eds), Horace Walpole’s correspondence with George Montagu (New Haven and London, 1941). vol. 9, p. 400, cited Desmond FitzGerald, Knight of Glin and Edwards Malins, Lost Demesnes, Irish landscape gardening, 1660-1845 (London, 1976) p. 104. 17 Richard Twiss, A Tour in Ireland in 1775 (1776, ed. Rachel Finnegan, Dublin, 2008) p. 6. On his visit Twiss viewed the 1775 exhibition of the Society of Artists in Ireland where he saw Ashford’s work, presumably including his view of Gibraltar which was on display that year: ‘I saw an exhibition of pictures in Dublin, by Irish artists, excepting those (chief ly landscapes) by Mr Roberts and Mr Ashford almost all the rest were detestable’, ibid ., 27. 18 J. Leslie, Phoenix park, a poem (London, 1772). Anne Plumptre on her visit in 1814-15 chose a different comparison, describing Howth as ‘the perfect rock of Gibraltar in miniature’, Anne Plumptre, Narrative of a residence in Ireland in the summer of 1814, and that of 1815 (London, 1817) p. 76. 19 Campbell, A philosophical survey , pp. 1-2. Campbell had noted Ashford’s works when on display in London. Thomas Campbell, Dr Campbell’s diary of a visit to England in 1775 (Cambridge 2011) p. 87. 20 ‘A Tour from London to Dublin’, p. 17. 21 Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan, The Wild Irish Girl (London, 1806, ed with introduction by Kathryn Kirkpatrick, Oxford, 1999) p. 14. 22 Cited William H. A Williams, Creating Irish tourism the first century, 1750-1850 (London, 2011) p. 6. 23 Plumptre, Narrative of a residence in Ireland , p. 12. 24 Maria Edgeworth, (London, 1812, ed. with introduction Heidi Thomson, 2000) The Absentee , p. 77. 25 Saunder’s News-Letter and Daily Advertiser , 1 July 1779. 26 Leonardo di Mauro, ‘Naples and the South’ in Andrew Wilton and Ilaria Bignamini (eds), Grand Tour, the lure of Italy in the eighteenth century , exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery (London, 1996) p. 144. 27 In general see Anne Crookshank, ‘A life devoted to landscape painting, William Ashford (c. 1746-1824)’, Irish arts review yearbook , vol. 11 (1995) pp. 119-30 and most recently Nicola Figgis ‘William Ashford’, Nicola Figgis (ed.), Art and architecture of Ireland, vol. 2 (Dublin, London and New Haven, 2014) pp. 157-58. 28 For the relationship between Ashford and Roberts see William Laffan and Brendan Rooney, Thomas Roberts, landscape and patronage in eighteenth-century Ireland (Tralee, 2009) pp. 191-201 and, for a different perspective, Daniel Sheppard ‘”Ashford copys and rivals Roberts”: new evidence for Thomas Roberts and William Ashford at Powerscourt’, Irish architectural and decorative studies , vol. xxiii (2020) pp. 90-95. 29 David Fleming, Ruth Kenny and William Laffan (eds), Exhibiting art in Georgian Ireland, the Society of Artists’ exhibitions recreated (Dublin, 2018) pp. 96-101. 30 A Group of Flowers NGI, 4505, Figgis and Rooney, Irish Paintings , p. 30. 31 William Laffan and Brendan Rooney, ‘Painting Carton, the 2nd duke of Leinster, Thomas Roberts and William Ashford’, in Patrick Cosgrove, Terence Dooley and Karol Mullaney-Dignam (eds), Aspects of Irish aristocratic life, esays on the FitzGeralds and Carton House (Dublin, 2014) pp. 128-37. 32 For the Ballyfin commission see William Laffan and Kevin V. Mullligan, ‘”A wide deserted waste”? rediscovered views of Ballyfin by William Ashford, c. 1784’, Irish architectural and decorative studies , vol. xviii (2010) pp. 130-39; for Milton’s ‘Seats’, and the Irish topographical tradition in general, see most recently Kevin V. Mulligan, Rich specimens of architectural beauty, John Preston Neale’s Irish country houses (Tralee, 2020) pp. 25-28 and passim . Notes