Press Release November 2004

Joan Clancy Gallery in the Ring Gaeltacht are currently hosting Dún Garbhán 800, until November 20th next. A salute to the town of Clancy's birth, this art exhibition has works by Brigid Flannery, Blawnin Clancy, Catherine Jane Ryan, Rayleen Clancy, Wishy Martin, Bríd Ní Chionnfaolaidh, Mary Yorke, Danny Cunningham, Rosemary Gaynor, Martin Quigley, Eilis O'Toole, Mary Noonan, Séamus Kelly, Mary Hallinan, James Condon, Maurice Cliffe, Olive O'Callaghan and others.

The most famous artists associated with Dungarvan are Sarah Purser (1848 – 1943), Power O'Malley (1877 – 1946) and Michael Mulcahy (1952 - ), and paintings of theirs will hold pride of place in the exhibition. Joan Clancy Gallery are grateful for the loan of Purser and O'Malley from The Waterford Municipal Art Collection. Power O'Malley, the son of Brigid Hannigan from Colligan was born in Mary St., Dungarvan, before the family moved to Dublin. Well known in the US for his illustrations for Life, The Literary Digest and Harpers, he became a renowned painter of portraits and landscapes.

Dungarvan became a Royal Honour eight hundred years ago in 1204 when Domhnall ó Faoláin King of the Decie, surrendered the province of Dungarvan to King John, and this month the town is entering another chapter of it's history with the opening of the new shopping centre on the old Glanbia site.

Joan Clancy is the widow of the late Tom Clancy from Carrick-on-Suir, Co Tipperary. Tom acclaimed as a Broadway and Hollywood actor and cornerstone of the internationally famous Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem, the group who have made such a lasting impression around the world as Ireland's greatest folksinging ambassadors.

The paintings by Sarah Purser and Power O'Malley are on loan from the collection of the Municipal Art Gallery, Greyfriars, Waterford.