Alumni Research Support Award

Katie Buckley: I was fortunate to receive the Alumni Research Support Award to aid my MA thesis research on, the collective Irish stained glass studio, An Túr Gloine (The Tower of Glass). My MA thesis explored this female-dominated enterprise in terms of its individual women artists and their work. The studio’s work is represented not only in every county in Ireland, but also internationally across Europe, North America, Australia, and beyond.

Due to the nature of stained glass largely remaining in situ in the original commission location, it is vital for one to travel to see the works in person. The Award graciously provided me with an opportunity to travel to Cork and Galway to study and photograph some of the studio’s most prestigious and integral works in person. 

I travelled to St. Brendan’s Cathedral, Loughrea, Co. Galway in which one can almost trace the history and trajectory of the studio through the forty-years long working relationship between the studio and the church. I also travelled to the Honan Hostel Chapel Cork, nestled on the grounds of University College Cork, Co. Cork, to view some of the earliest and most influential work of An Túr Gloine’s artists.

Both Loughrea Cathedral and the Honan Chapel embody the burgeoning Irish Arts and Crafts Movement and Celtic Revival era in which they came to fruition, and they demand to be viewed in person. The two sites were an essential component of the wider history of Irish stained glass as a genre, and they were integral to my MA thesis research on the success and ingenuity of the female-led studio An Túr Gloine.

Denise Meagher: I was fortunate to receive an Alumni Research Support Award this year. A part-time student of the MA in Art History, Collections and Curating, my thesis was about a painting that had always intrigued me - John Lavery's The Artist's Studio (1910-13, The National Gallery of Ireland).

My research took me, not only back in time, to late Edwardian London, but allowed me to learn more about 17th-century Spain and the Court of King Philip IV. There, in 1658, Diego Velázquez painted, arguably, one of the most important paintings in the History of Art, Las Meninas (‘The Maids of Honour’), who are among the people represented on the canvas. Las Meninas, however, is a painting about painting: about what it means to represent something visually. This earlier work inspired Lavery’s ‘homage’, which, while reflecting a very different social milieu than the Spanish Court during the Baroque period, uses many similar themes and motifs to those employed by Velázquez.

I used the award to visit London for three days in July. While there I visited No. 5 Cromwell Place, former home of John and Hazel Lavery, where The Artist’s Studio was painted. I was privileged to get access to The Royal Collection and spent time talking with Alex Buck, curator, at St. James’s Palace, who kindly showed me the study they hold, by Lavery, of his portrait of King George and Queen Mary and two of their children, which related to my research. I spent an afternoon at the Heinz Archive, part of the National Portrait Gallery, which holds several files on Lavery. Another afternoon was spent at the Tate Archive, reading letter exchanges between Lavery and important artists from his time including James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Auguste Rodin and William Orpen. In August, I travelled briefly to Madrid, where I visited the Prado Museum, to see Las Meninas - with my own eyes!. I also visited The Royal Palace of Madrid, the rooms of which are exceptionally beautiful.

The award enriched my research, and I am deeply grateful to the Alumni and to Dr Róisín Kennedy, my supervisor, for encouraging me to apply for it.

• Kieran Gaya (PhD Candidate)
• Rachel Healy (PhD Candidate)
• Isobel Morgan (MA in Art History, Collections and Curating)