Bring an iron

September 2005
Acrylic on canvas 51x75cm

I am fascinated by the relationships between the different parts and times of your life. Some people call it coincidence; I like to think these things have more meaning.  This painting is a nod to recognising these things in life. It has a long story, but it has a happy ending!

When I started college I moved into a house that had an abandoned old-style yellow iron. That was the same year I met a girl, Irene, who scared me a little bit. Moving to Dublin the following year I fell in love with the paintings of Paul Kerr. I decided to write him a letter, so I went to Bewleys on Grafton Street to do it, and sat there for two or three hours. He loved the letter as much as I love his paintings and now we meet up for the odd pint every now and again.

Three years later, Irene and I had become good friends and on the day we completed our theses we treated ourselves by sitting in Bewleys on Grafton Street for the whole day.

One night I went with a friend to a gig in the same Bewleys, to see a gig of a singer songwriter I had never seen before. The singer was Niall James Holohan, who recently wrote a song in which I appeared ("Henrietta Proust") on the same recording there was a song about working in Bewleys Hotel and it had the lyric "can you bring an iron up to room three four eight"

This was the string that tied everything together for me, and it reminded me of all these happy stories and new friends, so I decided to paint it. I pulled out the old yellow iron and here it is.