The ‘island of dreams’ that inspired many artists, painters and writers

One of my most enjoyable (and invigorating!) pages down the years was an account here of Achill Island’s annual ‘dash to the splash’ on the first day of 2017.

New Year’s Day on Ireland’s largest island, linked by a swing bridge to County Mayo since 1887, has traditionally been a unique celebration.

Islanders from around the world return home to welcome in another year with their friends and families, and jump in the sea.

I watched several hundred hardy swimmers gather on that cold windy morning four years ago on Dugort Beach. Their ‘dash to the splash’ involved much screaming and whooping!

It’ll be very different this year due to Covid-19, but if the numerous artists and painters who’ve been inspired by Achill Island down the centuries were to come back for the traditional swim, Dugort Beach couldn’t contain them!

“I would like to tell you about my brand new book,” author Mary J. Murphy’s e-mail began, continuing “it was a joy to research, a bit of a divil to write, a monster to edit” but now that it’s published it’s “a joy, once more, to talk about.”

The author then introduced me to her book, entitled ‘Achill Painters, An Island History’.

“It is the first time that anyone has attempted to gather the names - and lives - of so many of the scores of artists who have painted on the island, beginning with William Evans in the 1830s” Mary explained, adding that Evans was an art teacher in Eton College.

“Intended for a general readership,” Mary continued “the book explores the island’s gloriously rich artistic past, anchored in serious research but delivered with a light touch.”

The nearly 300-page, full-colour, meticulously compiled book, packed with paintings, pen-portraits, photographs and illustrations, is a potted history of the island as well as an extraordinarily in-depth account of Achill’s unique artistic heritage.

“Every word of it was written here,” Mary explained, adding pertinently “it was almost impossible to get it over the line during a pandemic.”

The author is from Menlough in Galway, this is her fourth book, but Achill has been her “soul-home” for over three decades.

Accounts of artists and observations of their work fill every page, sometimes over a dozen names in a single paragraph, confirming the truly remarkable tally of greater and lesser known painters that have lived and/or worked on the island.

Collecting them all together in a single tome is an amazing achievement, though Mary focuses on two in particular.

Every line of the book was written in Dooagh, near the former home of Eva O’Flaherty (1874-1963).

Mary admits to having been “obsessed” with “art doyenne” O’Flaherty for over a decade and has written about her in a previous book called Forgotten Island Heroine.

She has described Eva as “the intrepid island entrepreneur, salon hostess, milliner, Parisienne hat model, nationalist, patron of the arts and literary supporter.”

The remarkable O’Flaherty came to Achill in 1910 and established St Colman’s Knitting Industries, an organisation which provided work for local women for almost half a century.

She was a friend of Paul Henry, one of the best-known and most acclaimed artists to live and work on Achill.

The second artist Mary focuses on is Marie Howet, the Belgian Expressionist painter whose village scene in Dooagh, painted in 1929, is on the front cover of her book.

Long lists can make boring reading but Mary’s tally of just a few “creatives seduced by the place” is absolutely breath-taking!

“Over the years,” she told me “Achill has welcomed the likes of Alexander Williams, Edward Nangle, Sarah Purser, Robert Henri, Lady Butler, Marie Howet, Padraic Colum, Hilda Roberts, Sean Keating, Sean O’Sullivan, Esttella Solomons, Grace Henry, Letitia and Eva Hamilton, Anne Yeats, Dairine Vanston, Micheal de Burca, Charles Lambe, Stella Frost, Mainie Jellett, Evie Hone, Nano Reid, Graham Greene, Derek Hill, Louis le Brocquy, Roger Shackleton (nephew of Ernest), John Healy, Desmond Turner, and countless others. I wanted to try and find out what was the draw of the place, for men and women alike, and why were/are so many creatives seduced by the place.”

Songwriter Percy French, another Achill painter, called it “the island of my dreams.”

Alfred Austin, English Poet Laureate of 1896, wrote in London’s National Review “Achill, a more perfect place to holiday it would not be possible to imagine.”

Acclaimed English novelist and publisher L.A.G Strong wrote in the 1930s “I know no place where there is as much light as Achill, where the very stones in the roads are alive with light.”

“You will recognise numerous Belfast names in the book,” Mary told me, adding “I think I remarked some place that there was an unusually large Belfast coterie in the ‘Achill Admirers Association!”

So I’ll leave the last word to Robert Lloyd Praeger (1865-1953) multiple gold medal-winner from the Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club, writer and librarian from Holywood, County Down, quoted on page five of the book - “Achill has a strange charm which everyone feels but no one can fully explain.”

Achill Painters: An Island History (Knockma Publishing) is available online from Achill Tourism, €20/£16, email [email protected] or MayoBooks.ie in Castlebar.