McAuliffe and Paddy Whelan aka ‘The Cement God’ are the best known of the craftsmen that created the look of this town. Add to this the famed signwriters ‘Chute of Listowel’ and the scene is set for a distinctive streetscape that has been maintained over four generations.   This is the legacy of Pat McAuli
fe.  That point was made by Bryan MacMahon as long ago as 1962 yet it would take another half century almost for a comprehensive record to be compiled.   This was carried out by Sean Lynch of Moyvane while he was studying art in Limerick. He tracked down and documented all surviving examples of  McAuliffe’s work as part of an MA in the history of art and design.

McAuliffe has had a profound effect on Lynch. It was the first art he experienced as a schoolboy in Listowel and the experience continues to influence his work as an artist.   He has just finished a piece on the iconic DeLorean car. It is featured in a showcase of young Irish artists currently on show in the Irish Museum of Modern Art.   The impact of McAuliffe is evident in Lynch’s preoccupation with the recovery of material evidence of significant cultural events that have been forgotten or lost.

In 2011 Lynch secured funding for a public artwork dedicated to McAuliffe  under a scheme run by the Department of the Environment and administered by the Arts Office of Kerry County Council.   The Central Hotel was re-opened as a centre for the study of McAuliffe’s legacy. ‘The Maid of Erin’ was painstakingly restored by Freddie Chute. Inside the ‘shop’ – a disused bar – the remnants of McAuliffe’s workshop were displayed alongside photographs of his shopfronts and a documentary film narrated by Gabriel Fitzmaurice.   In and around these elements an idea of Pat McAuliffe began to take shape as people called in and shared their memories of the man and his work.  Gaps remain – significant gaps – creating an enigma that encourages even more curiosity.  Was he political? A Fenian? ‘The Maid of Erin’ is a neat summary of nationalist iconography at a time when home rule surfed on a wave of cultural nationalism towards a confrontation with the colonists.   On the other hand his marriage of the Harp and Lion on J.M. Keane’s premises – his last major work – was enough to give the owners pause for thought in those ‘difficult’ times.

The ‘Angel House’ – O’Connor’s in Abbeyfeale – reveals the scope and originality of his symbolism but the source of the imagery is a mystery.   McAuliffe was a magpie. Commercially available templates were adapted. A mermaid from the  McAuliffe crest was superimposed on one of several Italianate plaster capitals that survive.   The Victorian vogue for exotica, a popular illustrated press and  widespread circulation of printed ephemera had well and truly breached provincial horizons. He absorbed it all and channelled it into his designs with such originality that McAuliffe cannot be dismissed as a ‘naif‘ or folk artist mechanically repeating traditional decorative schemes.   There is not the like of him anywhere. Below the pedestal where once an angel stood is a declaration in Latin that life is short but art is long. Below this is an Anglo Saxon fertilty charm.   What was going on? Was he thinking of his 15 children and Charlotte who had just died at the age of 21.Were the sacrifices he made weighing on his mind? McAulliffe never made much money and things were tough for his family, often going without while he was busy plastering and making art.

There is much to speculate upon but the most striking thing to emerge from all of these conversations is a deeply personal one. Amongst the remains of his workshop are a number of heads that were cast from life.  McAuliffe’s great grandaughter Kay said that one of the casts was always known as Charlotte.   Pat McAuliffe was told by his father that ‘Old Pat’ took blue mud from the bank of the Feale, filled a basin with it and pressed the heads of his children into it to make a mould. These were then cast in plaster and incorporated into his designs. His sister Ann always understood the model for the ‘Maid’ to have been Mary Francis who was born in 1894 and died in the US in the 1970s. Place the head between Anthony and Rosarie McAuliffe (great grandchildren) and the resemblance is startling.   For the first time since she was created Freddie Chute has revealed the original palster cast that is ‘The Maid of Erin.’ The detail is stunning and all the more striking for the resonance that it has in these troubled times.   In 1904 the first edition of the Kerryman newspaper invoked Davis to remind people that they had a country, that they were citizens of an Irish nation. As that country attempts to recover from the depradations of  the developers and their friends in power, it is fitting that McAuliffe’s invocation of the ‘Maid of Erin’ has been restored to the people of Listowel and beyond.   ­­­­­­­­­________________________________________________________TEXT ENDS I500