Overview
A sculptor whose work stands in Washington, San Francisco and Dublin grew up in a townland outside Annascaul, and this small gallery brings fourteen of his bronzes home. It is on the upper floor of the South Pole Inn in Annascaul, County Kerry, it is free, and it opened in April 2014. The collection belongs to the Jerome Connor Trust, with six further pieces held privately. Seeing the work in a village pub rather than a city museum is the point.
History
Jerome Connor (1874–1943) was born in the townland of Coumduff, just outside Annascaul, into a family of stonemasons. He emigrated to the United States in 1888 and built a reputation as a sculptor of public monuments, among them Nuns of the Battlefield in Washington, D.C. and the Robert Emmet bronzes that stand in Dublin, Washington, San Francisco and Iowa.
He came back to Ireland in 1925 and set up a studio on the North Circular Road in Dublin. His last years were spent in poverty, though his reputation held.
The Jerome Connor Trust was set up in 1990, with the National Gallery of Ireland, to acquire a core group of his bronzes. The permanent space at the South Pole Inn, a 19th-century building, opened in April 2014.
What to see
The collection is arranged to show how Connor’s work moved from early terracotta busts to monumental bronze. Among the pieces:
- Éire – a figure of Ireland with a harp, conceived in the early 1930s and later cast for Dublin’s Merrion Square.
- The Patriot – a 1916-inspired memorial study.
- Robert Emmet (1916) – one of the surviving casts of the revolutionary.
- Bishop John Carroll – a bronze of the American Catholic prelate, from his American commissions.
- The Angels of the Battlefield – a miniature study for the Nuns of the Battlefield monument in Washington.
- Portrait busts of Irish political figures including William Cosgrave and Kevin O’Higgins, from his work for the Irish Free State.
Each work has a text placing it against its original public commission, and there are archival photographs of Connor at work in Dublin and the United States. If you only look closely at one thing, make it The Angels of the Battlefield: it is the small study behind one of his best-known American monuments.
The setting
The gallery is upstairs in the South Pole Inn, which is itself a Kerry landmark: the Antarctic explorer Tom Crean opened it in 1917, and it still shows a collection of his memorabilia downstairs alongside the pub and dining room. The stone walls of the old building suit the scale of the bronzes.
Worth knowing: the gallery keeps the inn’s hours, so it is open when the pub is and closed when it isn’t. Ring ahead if you are making a special trip.
Nearby walks and attractions
Annascaul sits at the foot of the Slieve Mish Mountains and is a base for walkers on the Dingle Way, the Kerry Camino and a web of local trails.
- Annascaul Lake – north of the village, in a steep mountain valley.
- Dingle Way – the long-distance trail passes close by.
- Tom Crean Garden – beside the inn, commemorating the explorer.
- Local food – the village is known for its Annascaul black pudding.