Mean Irish Fuckers

I’ve just returned from a viewing of Peader Lamb’s new windows which have been commissioned for the Irish repertory theatre in New York. Peader Lamb is quite simply the greatest Irish stained glass artist since Harry Clarke. Like Clarke his strengths include good draughtsmanship and a compulsion to narrate through glass. Arguably his colour sense is superior to Clarke’s. This new work has been commissioned by a New York-based art lover called Clementina Santi Flaherty. The surname is a bit of a misnomer: she’s not of Irish background, she’s a self-made woman who married a Flaherty. In fact if she had been a genuine Flaherty I would have been gobsmacked because it is practically unknown for the rich Irish to sponsor the arts. Sure why would you want to spend money on the arts when you could have more fun with horses and yachts?
In my office is an eight inch thick tome listing most of the fellowships and private individuals in America who sponsor the arts. The paucity of Irish names is striking, page after page is full of Wasp and Jewish names. Is it any wonder that the new art gallery in UCC has been paid for by someone called Glucksman and not O’Sullivan or Murphy?
But worse is that an artist of Lamb’s genius has to export his brilliance: a window portraying scenes from Irish plays, incorporating portraits of great Irish playwrights. Why hasn’t someone in the Abbey had the good sense to commission something like this already? After all those fuckers get 8 million a year. About four times the amount the entire literature sector in Ireland gets put together. http://www.peadarlamb.com/home.html