At Origin Gallery
27th September – 12th October 2018
WILD AT HEART…
Margo ‘imagines’ the bear sitting majestically in and around her mother’s field in Teeromoyle resting in the shadow of theTeeromoyle Mountain, (Sliabh Thír Ó mBaoil) in South West Kerry. Her mother’s house is long gone but the field where the house was remains unchanged and ‘I have painted this field many times’… says Margo. Now inhabited by mostly hares her drawings representing the many charming antics of the wild and playful animals are so bountiful as to merit THE HARE ROOM – a room of its own at the forthcoming Origin exhibition.
Margo ‘imagines’ the bear sitting majestically in and around her mother’s field in Teeromoyle resting in the shadow of theTeeromoyle Mountain, (Sliabh Thír Ó mBaoil) in South West Kerry. Her mother’s house is long gone but the field where the house was remains unchanged and ‘I have painted this field many times’… says Margo. Now inhabited by mostly hares her drawings representing the many charming antics of the wild and playful animals are so bountiful as to merit THE HARE ROOM – a room of its own at the forthcoming Origin exhibition.
The artist takes her inspiration from the words of poet William Cowpers’ Epitaph on a Hare …
EXCERPT
Epitaph on a Hare
Epitaph on a Hare
By William Cowper
Here lies, whom hound did ne’er pursue,
Nor swifter greyhound follow,
Whose foot ne’er tainted morning dew,
Nor ear heard huntsman’s hallo’,
Here lies, whom hound did ne’er pursue,
Nor swifter greyhound follow,
Whose foot ne’er tainted morning dew,
Nor ear heard huntsman’s hallo’,
OldTiney, surliest of his kind,
Who, nursed with tender care,
And to domesticate bounds confined,
Was still a wild jack-hare.
The brown bear was in Ireland when our hunter-gatherer forebears arrived 9,000 years ago. It became extinct four to six millennia later. The brown bears in Ireland were highly unlikely to have survived the last ice age. It is predicted that extinction occurred very quickly during the last glaciation with the likelihood that the bears died out sometime between 150 – 1500 years during the last ice age period.
A study of the DNA of ancient brown bear bones in Ireland proved that the maternal ancestors of modern polar bears were Irish. Conditions in Ireland at the end of the last ice age resembled those of Alaska today. Polar bears may have been stranded here and brown bears could have mated with them, accounting for the presence of their DNA sequences in some polar bears today. Our Irish bears were, in fact, brown-polar hybrids.
A study of the DNA of ancient brown bear bones in Ireland proved that the maternal ancestors of modern polar bears were Irish. Conditions in Ireland at the end of the last ice age resembled those of Alaska today. Polar bears may have been stranded here and brown bears could have mated with them, accounting for the presence of their DNA sequences in some polar bears today. Our Irish bears were, in fact, brown-polar hybrids.
According to Kieran Hickey’s article ‘Wolf – Forgotten Irish Hunter’ wolves in Ireland were also once an integral part of the Irish countryside and culture but are now extinct… “The last wild wolf in Ireland is said to have been killed in 1786, three hundred years after they were believed to have been wiped out in England and a century after their disappearance in Scotland.
The grey wolf was reasonably common throughout Ireland until the 1700s. Up until then, Irish people lived in uneasy harmony with the wolf, which was hunted mainly by the upper classes. The advent of British rule changed the situation for Irish wolves, who the English lords saw as a troublesome species and targeted for extermination.
The last wolf in Ireland was killed in 1786 in Ballydarton, Co. Carlow by a farmer called John Watson, whose sheep were getting eaten.”
The last wolf in Ireland was killed in 1786 in Ballydarton, Co. Carlow by a farmer called John Watson, whose sheep were getting eaten.”
There are recent reports of government considering bringing back the wolves again to Ireland as part of an effort to control the expanding deer population.
Added to this extraordinary studies from the artist are striking paintings of gannets, jackdaws and foxes.
The Origin Gallery 