Arts Week with Judy Murphy

In the early 1800s Scottish engineer Alexander Nimmo designed a series of piers around Ireland, including one in Roundstone, where he also helped to develop the picturesque Connemara village.

There have been several events in Roundstone to mark the 200th anniversary of the pier’s completion in 1824, and the next one is courtesy of artist Rosie McGurran. From this Saturday evening, August 3 until August 18, she’s having an exhibition in the Community Hall with the catchy title, Finding [Alexander] Nimmo.

Rosie has made Roundstone her home since 2000, dividing her time between there and her birthplace of Belfast where her parents still live.

It’s clear how much she loves this place that has inspired so many artists, especially from Ulster, something that she really realised more than a quarter of a century ago when she read James McIntyre’s memoir, Three Men on an Island.

That’s what inspired her to move West, despite having had a successful career in her home city, she explains.

And among those who welcomed her in those early days were the late Tim and Mairéad Robinson, also outsiders who had made Roundstone their home and who did so much for so many decades to map the landscape of the West of Ireland.

Likewise their neighbour, Armagh-born landscape painter Cecil Maguire. And, like the Robinsons, he also died in early 2020, she recalls.

“As a teenager and in my early 20s, when I would visit Roundstone, he was an enormous support to me and I’d be so sad when I was leaving I would visit the Ulster Museum. when I got back to Belfast, just to see his work.”

Having decided to settle there 24 years ago, Rosie set up a studio and became immersed in her new community.

Her contributions to the locality have including initiating activities in Roundstone for Culture Night, held every September – the programme there has become a highlight of the event in Galway.

She also runs the Inishlacken Project, inviting national and international artists to join her for residencies on the island that inspired her fellow Northerners, James McIntyre, Gerard Dillon and George Campbell.  And she exhibits in the Community Hall, especially during the summer months.

This year’s show evolved as she began looking at Nimmo’s Pier in the village and drawing “that beautiful, rounded curve pier”, usually from the vantage point of new pier.

She did that daily for six months and, back in her studio, she committed some of those drawings to canvas.

And as she worked, Rosie engaged in a series of internal conversations that involved Nimmo, the Robinsons and, also, herself.

Pictured: The ‘beautiful curved pier’, designed by Alexander Nimmo in Roundstone.