Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART 25th September 2024

Important Irish Art | 25 September 2024 57 www.adams.ie is also much better fed than he is). He exhorts her not to be so arrogant, for ‘worldly wealth soon melts away, and cheats the very miser.’ If Lord Clare’s sons, O’Donnell of the Ships, and other illustrious Irishmen (in his rant- ing the loquacious man gives a verse to each of the heroes he describes) were forced to bow to Fate ’as every mortal bows, Can you be proud, can you be stiff, my Woman of Three Cows ?’ The drawing which captures the tension of sexual confrontation superbly, is coloured simply and skil- fully with an ultramarine wash on the tinker’s scarf and on the neck of the woman’s dress, with added touches of burnt sienna. In the second illustration the wom- an has managed to extricate herself from her unwanted suitor, and is seen departing in the distance, while the man broods fierily on their con- versation, the final verse on his lips: ‘Now there you go! You still, of course, keep up your scornful bear- ing, And I’m too poor to hinder you: but, by the cloak I’m wearing, If I had but four cows myself, even though you were my spouse, I’d thwack you well to cure your pride, my Woman of Three Cows!’ The itinerant’s blackthorn stick is propped significantly against the stone wall which the Woman of Three Cows is passing. Though Jack Yeats executed count- less drawings for illustration, he never repeated himself. The per- sonalities peopling the world of his imagination have all been observed from life and appear as individuals appropriate to whatever setting they are in. In these two striking examples illustrating Mangan’s poem, Yeats captures the characters and their emotional conflict to perfection, cre- ating economic, animated, humor- ous images of great beauty. Hilary Pyle, (2005), courtesy of Gorry Gallery, Dublin, to whom we are in- debted.