The Exception to the Rule

I'd like to welcome everyone here..From Newcastle and Kilcoole, from Finglas, Feakle and Furbo, Blessington, Bonmahon and Tramore…There’s even a contingent from Donnycarney and my Dad and his friend, Maura came all the way from west Mayo. I know you have made a huge effort to get here, and I really appreciate it .. Thank you all for coming, It is very nice to see lovely familiar faces..

This exhibition is really special for me….its very close to my heart and my home…It is close to my heart because I love painting… and, as is usual for me, I am doing it against the odds, and without what most people consider the basic equipment.

This event is unique for me because its close to home.. I have lived in North county Wicklow for more than twenty years now… Longer than I have lived anywhere else. Close to home means for me it’s a perilous adventure

…and I know all about perilous adventures - In one of my former lives as a mixed media /performance artist …I had loads of exhibitions and performances, which involved standing naked in front of people reciting monologues, from San Francisco to Tokyo, and all points in between, including once in Ireland and that was in Limerick- and having this show here feels a lot more challenging than standing naked in front of 300 Japanese people, being simultaneously, and very badly translated..

But high risk also means high reward.. I really wanted this to happen. I am very happy with my paintings and delighted to have this opportunity to have you see them.

Many people were involved in helping me put this together… the Signal staff were great, Eamon de Buitleir agreed in principle months ago to be here tonight, and that is wonderful, But most of all, Eilish Carney and Lisa Merriman Dutton, stuck with me through the whole process and made everything easy, painless and even enjoyable…

So, thanks a lot. And I have to tell you that having regular hours of assistance in my life has made me even more independent than I was, not less… and that’s not just a good thing… it’s a great thing!

Finally, I want to say a big ‘thank you’ to my spouse, my sponsors and my buyers… My ‘Dearly Beloved’, Denis Buckley, has been a great support for more than twenty years and has been particularly supportive of my painting. For more than two decades, he has told me that in his heart, he always sees me as a painter… This was long before I even had a paint box to my name.

My sponsors, which include both arts councils on this island through the Arts and Disability Fund, subsidized my art materials for this last year –And that has been great.




And my buyers… My buyers, like my sponsors are all intelligent, sensitive types, with great taste. When I decided it was possible to become a painter- this was after I took a break from my exciting, tough and demanding day job, a lot of people told me, including some other artists, that no-one makes a living as an artist (unless they are dead, and in my book, making a living when you are dead is not much of a living)..

And not for the first time, and probably not for the last time, I was told that I was being ‘unrealistic’ Oh, I have heard that so often….! Anyway, they are all so wrong…I am very realistic…

So, to my buyers, my supporters and my sponsors, Thanks a lot, You help make me, once again, be what I like being best - the exception to the rule….Go raibh míle maith agaibh, go léir.