WHYTE'S IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART 27th September 2021 at 6pm

32 21 Maurice MacGonigal PPRHA HRA HRSA (1900-1979) BALLYKINLAR INTERNMENT CAMP, COUNTY DOWN, 1921 oil on board signed lower right 13.75 by 18in. (34.9 by 45.7cm) Frame Dimensions: 20.25 by 24.25in. (51.4 by 61.6cm) Excellent condition. Provenance: Frank Dowling, a gift from the artist in 1929; Private collection, Stratford, Ontario; Thence by descent Bearing second unfinished work on reverse. Maurice MacGonigal (1900-1979) had trained in the studios of his uncle, Joshua Clarke, and his first cousin, Harry Clarke, in North Frederick Street, Dublin. He became a senior ‘flesh’ painter on glass as at a very young age. He was enrolled by Bulmer Hobson in ‘Fianna Éireann’ which was the Scouting arm of Sinn Féin. In 1916 he moved on to membership of Sinn Féin proper, and was the dispatch rider for Seán Dowling (also a neighbour) who was the officer commanding ‘C’ company, later changed to ‘G’ Company 4th Battalion, Dublin Brigade, Irish Republican Army. Maurice MacGonigal became the Company Intelligence Officer in 1920. Following Bloody Sunday and its aftermath in Croke Park on 21 November 1920, a roundup of IRA members by the British Army and the police began. Maurice was arrested on 8 December 1920 at his parents’ home on Ranelagh Road. He was interned initially in Kilmainham Gaol, but for greater security was moved to the newly opened internment camp at Ballykinlar in Co. Down. He was brought from Dublin to Belfast by HMS Tiger, a Royal Navy battlecruiser - as a precaution against rescue attempts on the road. Ballykinlar was the summer HQ for the British Army in Ulster. At the edge of Dundrum Bay it was in a most beautiful place, but also a very damp site. It housed some 200 internees, with approximately 25 per Nissen hut. The Army and other services were housed in the original main buildings. The internees organised themselves along military lines, as in the IRA. Maurice was registered as the rank of ‘Artist’( the only such registration in the camp). He also was appointed the ‘I/O’ ( Intelligence Officer) as, being an artist, he was allowed slightly more freedom of movement about the camp. Most of his paintings and drawings of the Camp, its domestic arrangements, and the local environs are held in public collections. This charming painting was a gift to his friend, neighbour and fellow Intelligence officer, Frank Dowling in 1929, 8 years after the end of the War of Independence in 1921. The artist’s training and indeed, preferred vision, of painting into light (as a painter of Stained Glass) is obvious here. The main buildings in the background - the ochre colours used to act as focal points for the eye - and in the middle distance the Nissen huts housing the internees. Foregrounded are the internees at break, playing sport or running and, in the middle distance the other internees, apparently loitering. Different colour notes are used by the artist to create movement and recessive spaces with the billowing clouds giving a sense of space in a compressed composition. The camp, by happenstance, held a great number of men who were to be the nexus of the early Irish Governments. The artist shared his hut space with a number of future politicians including Seán Lemass, whom he knew well from earlier IRA actions. Nearly 40 years later he was to paint the official State portrait of Lemass as Taoiseach for Dáil Éireann.