From China on Richard Murphy

Nanchang, China. It is a good addition to the Kilcullen historical archive to have these two nicely painted watercolours by the late Richard Murphy. Kilcullen people will be in his debt. The artist has a fine sense of colour and compositional balance.

Of course, he has taken liberties with perspective and detail. A glaring example is the way he portrays the field sloping down to the river from the back of the boys National School (now library) with no hint of the overgrown briars and sally bushes known to local boys as 'the jungle' as they burrowed their way towards St Brigid's Well from Molloy's backyard and the spout.

The church seems too close to the main street crossroads. The painting portrays a tall steeple at the rear of the church. Whatever happened to it? The sharp bend at Nugent's field seems exaggerated. Why are there no willow trees and other species along the bank of Nugents' near the old weir?

I wonder if it would be possible to reproduce and frame these two paintings and to sell them as fundraising for continuing community projects?

Garreth Byrne.

(ED: The steeple was in the original plans but was never built. The growth on the weir of willows, etc, wouldn't have happened until after the weir was breached. And all painters take liberties with perspective in order to fit things in. The works are nevertheless the best contemporaneous examples of either art or photography in existence showing Kilcullen prior to WW2.)