In this Section -

• Recent gifts from the FNCI
• Donations to:
• The National Gallery of Ireland
  
• The National Library
  
• The National Museum
  
• The Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA)
  
• The Crawford Gallery of Art, Cork
  
• The National Self-Portrait Collection, University of Limerick
  
• The Royal Irish Academy
  
• The Thomas MacDonagh Museum, Cloughjordan, Co. Tipperary
  
• Newry and Mourne Museum
  
• Waterford Museum of Treasures
  
• The Library, Trinity College Dublin
  
• Waterford County Museum, Dungarvan.
  

Ireland's oldest arts charity

The FNCI's recent donation of €20,000 made possible the return to Ireland of this fine portrait of Emily FitzGerald, Duchess of Leinster, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, acquired for Castletown House.

• Donation to Castletown House - Portrait of Emily FitzGerald
• The largest grant which the Friends of the National Collections of Ireland have ever given in our 98 years history has been the €20,000 which recently made possible the purchase at auction in London of the beautiful portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds of Emily FitzGerald, Duchess of Leinster (1731-1814), and its return to Ireland.
  This striking painting had hung for many years in Carton, County Kildare, ancestral home of the Dukes of Leinster (which is now a hotel). It was one of a number of important paintings recently sold by the 9th Duke, who lives in England. The balance of the cost was provided jointly by the Office of Public Works and the Castletown Foundation. It now hangs in Castletown House, near Celbridge, County Kildare.
  The FNCI were able to provide a grant of this size only because we recently received an unexpected and generous bequest in a will. It would otherwise have been impossible for us to do so since our only regular income is the annual subscriptions of our members. We are proud to have enabled the return to Ireland of this lovely painting which is part of our country's heritage and can now be appreciated and enjoyed by future generations. This is what the FNCI is for!
   
  Lady Emily FitzGerald was not just the wife of a man who was an important figure in the political life of  18th century Ireland; she was very much a personality in her own right. Married young  to James FitzGerald, 20th Earl of Kildare and later 1st Duke of Leinster, she was the mother of eighteen children, one of them Lord Edward FitzGerald, United Irishman and a leader of the insurrection of 1798, and three more children following her remarriage. Much of the duke's political success was attributed to her as, from their homes in Carton (which she extensively redesigned), Frescati,Blackrock, County Dublin (a
  supermarket stands there now) and Leinster House, they played a significant role in the political life of the country, her own sympathies being radical.
   
  Castletown House , the earliest and largest Palladian house in Ireland, was built in 1722-29 by William Conolly, the immensely rich Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. It was described by an English visitor fifty years later as ''the only house in Ireland to which the term palace can be applied.''  Here another dynamic woman, Lady Emily's sister Louisa who was married to Thomas Conolly, presided. After the last of the family, the Conolly-Carews, left in 1965 it was saved from developers by the generosity and foresight of Desmond Guinness, co-founder of the Irish Georgian Society, who bought it and 120 acres of its surrounding demesne.  Subsequently maintained by the Irish Georgian Society , and then by the Castletown Foundation, it was taken into public ownership in 1994.  The house and lands are maintained by the OPW and open to the public, while the important furniture and fittings (much of them original to the house) are owned by the Castletown Foundation  who have, like the IGS before , painstakingly acquired them over the years with the help of Irish and American philanthropists. It is in every way a fitting home for Lady Emily's portrait.

​     Mary Swanzy at IMMA

• In June 2021, despite the national Covid 19 lockdown which very much curtailed our activities, the Friends were able to present to the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), at their request, an important painting by Mary Swanzy (1882-1978), "The Melee", which we purchased at de Vere's auction. This work has been frequently exhibited since it was painted in 1931 and is described by Sean Kissane, curator of exhibitions at IMMA, as "a significant transitional work, one of the first images she made in the surrealist/expressionist style that would come to define her late work from the 1940s on".
  €14,000 including fees.

• Presentation to Clare Museum, Ennis
• The famous Irish artist Frederic William Burton (1816-1900) spent his childhood in Corofin, County Clare. The Clare Museum in Ennis hopes to build on his local 
  connections by gathering works by him and other early  Irish artists from Clare. In July 2021 the FNCI were happy to assist this endeavour by purchasing at auction (Morgan O'Driscoll), and presenting to the museum, a fine portrait by Burton in pastel and charcoal of a young woman, thought to be Annie Callwell. (€2,905 including fees).
  Burton's best known works include the magnificent watercolour 'The Meeting on the Turret Stairs' which the Irish public voted as their favourite picture a few years ago, and 'A Blind Girl at a Holy Well'. He became the director of the National Gallery, London, and was responsible for acquiring some of the most important paintings in its collection.

• Portrait of a Poet
• A grant from the Friends of the National Collections of Ireland has assisted Limerick City Gallery of Art to acquire a very fine portrait of the Limerick - born poet, Michael Hartnett, by Edward McGuire.
• Michael Hartnett (1941-1999) came from Newcastle West, Co. Limerick, and wrote his much admired poetry in English and (for several years, exclusively) in Irish. His  work gained  awards on both sides of the Atlantic, and Seamus Heaney called him  'one of the truest, most tested and beloved voices in Irish poetry in our time.'
• Edward McGuire RHA (1932-1986) has been described as the finest Irish portrait painter since John Butler Yeats. He painted many literary figures, including Patrick Kavanagh, Paul Durcan, Seamus Heaney and Anthony Cronin. His meticulously worked portraits often included the motif of a bird, such as an owl. The present work, which hints at the poet's vulnerability below the surface, was done in 1971, and has a lapwing. It was to be auctioned at Adam's, Dublin, but when its US  owners learned that a public collection wished to acquire it  they generously agreed, with the co-operation of Adam's, to sell it privately. The Friends gave a grant of €15,000 and the balance came from Limerick City and County Council.

Michael Hartnett (LCGA)

• Two New Museums
• In June 2021 the Waterford Museum of Treasures added two new museums to the   city's Viking Triangle: the Museum of Time, at Greyfriars , and the Irish Museum of   Silver at the Deanery in Cathedral Square. They display remarkable collections of clocks and timepieces and of silver, respectively, which have been donated to the people of Waterford and Ireland by public spirited private collectors.(This brings to five the number of separate museums in the complex, something which surely must be unequalled in any other city of comparable size.)
• The Friends of the National Collections of Ireland have saluted Waterford's achievement by presenting a fine mid-18th century map case to the Bishop's Palace museum. It now displays part of a very important collection of armorial Chinese porcelain bearing the coats of arms of the wealthy Irish families who commissioned them in the 18th century. (€7,000)

• Three Sculptures for Cork
• The Friends have received three handsome marble busts under the will of the late Homan Potterton, former director of the National Gallery of Ireland. They are by the well known Irish sculptors Christopher Moore (b 1790), James Heffernan (b 1785) and Edward A. Foley (b 1814), respectively. We have donated them in memory of Homan to Doneraile Court, the great house in north Cork, which was built in the 1720s by Arthur St.Leger, later 1st Viscount Doneraile and was home to that family until it was sold to the Land Commission in 1969. After years of decay it has now been splendidly restored and furnished by the Office of Public Works and opened to the public in its beautiful 460 acre estate on the banks of the Awbeg river, immortalised by Edmund Spenser in his poem The Faerie Queene.

• New Home for Waterford Art Collection
• The Waterford Gallery of Art, which contains the city's municipal art collection, has moved to a fine new home in the former bank building at 31-32 O'Connell Street in the city. To celebrate this welcome development the FNCI have purchased at auction and presented to the gallery, at their request, an attractive painting "The Cuilin" by Robert Burke. It shows a girl singing the traditional Irish air of the painting's title while a young man accompanies her on the accordion. (Fonsie Mealy's €2750).
• Robert Burke  (1909-1991), who was born in Scotland and studied at the Dundee College of Art, moved to Ireland and became headmaster of the Waterford School of Art. He played a major role in developing public appreciation of art in the region, and in the initiation of the annual Waterford Art Exhibitions and the establishment of the municipal art collection. He exhibited works at the RHA, the Royal Academy, London, and the Paris Salon.

The Cuilin by Robert Burke (WGA)

•  Donations of History to Two Ulster Museums
• As part of our policy of supporting regional and local cultural institutions throughout Ireland the Friends of the National Collections of Ireland recently acquired a number of items of historical interest and presented them to Donegal County Museum. They comprise the handsome 44 piece 18th century Mason's ironstone dinner service of the Donegal Grand Jury, and  a cap with cap badge and a silk bannerette of the Donegal Regiment of Militia. 
• The Donegal Regiment of Militia was formed in 1793. Its most notable place in Irish history was its role in the harsh suppression of the 1798 Rebellion when it participated in the battles of Forth, New Ross, Enniscorthy and Vinegar Hill.
• The county Grand Jury was the first form of local government in Ireland. Composed of local worthies  -  mainly large landowners and merchants - it levied rates and maintained the roads and workhouses etc. in the county, along with other functions which are nowadays carried out by county councils. It also conducted preliminary investigations into serious crimes.
• Also, the FNCI have presented to the Tower Museum in Derry-Londonderry city a  silk bannerette of the Royal Tyrone Regiment of Militia. Like the Donegal Militia it was founded in 1793 and it too participated in the suppression of the '98 Rebellion at Athy, Narraghmore and Ballymore Eustace in County Kildare and at Vinegar Hill and Tuberneering in Wexford. In 1881 it was subsumed into the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.
• Unless fragile and rare relics of our country's history, in all its aspects, such as these objects are collected and preserved they will eventually disappear and be lost for ever. Then future generations will reproach us and wonder why we allowed it to happen.

• A Royal Visitor
• The FNCI have donated an attractive pair of large coloured engravings after Joseph Haverty RHA (1794-1864) to the Irish Architectural Archive. We bought them
  at the auction (Adams, September 2021) of the art collection of the late Homan Potterton. €3115, including fees. They show the ceremonial entry into the City of Dublin of George IV in August 1821 and his departure from Kingstown (now Dun Laoghaire) the following month. It was the first time that a British monarch had visited Ireland otherwise than at the head of an army.
  The IAA wished to have these engravings because they are of importance in our architectural history, recording in detail the impressive buildings of a proud 
  city two hundred years ago.
• Remarkably, 75 years ago a painting showing the same scene was  presented by the FNCI to another public collection. It was a large oil painting by another artist, William Turner de Lond (fl. c1820-1837), and we gave it to the National Gallery of Ireland in 1947.
  Incidentally, Daniel O'Connell was so pleased with the royal visit, which he saw as support for his endeavours to secure Catholic Emancipation for Ireland (though in fact it was to take another eight years before the King, very reluctantly, agreed to sign the Bill) that he proposed that a collection be taken up "from every peasant in Ireland' to build a palace for the King. This optimistic idea did not produce sufficient enthusiasm from the said peasants to build a palace but it did build a bridge  - King's Bridge, beside what is now Heuston railway station, Dublin.

• Donation to Limerick City Gallery of Art
• In memory of a much esteemed former president and long-time Council member
  of the Friends of the National Collections of Ireland, the late Thomas Ryan PPRHA,
  we have purchased at auction (Whytes, November 2021) and presented to Limerick City Gallery of Art at their request, a beautiful example of his  work, "The Shannon at Limerick, Sarsfield Bridge" (1967), the city of his birth.  (€2,000 and fees) ​

• Estella  Solomons
• In January 2022 a member of our Council donated two etchings by the artist Estella Frances Solomons (1882-1968) to the National Gallery of Ireland, through the Friends. They are of Hoey's Court, Dublin, birthplace of Dean Swift and Kings Inns.

• Important Furniture Brought Back to Ireland
• The most important pieces of furniture to go on public display in this country for many years have recently been acquired with the assistance of the 
  Friends of the National Collections of Ireland. They are a pair of George III ormolu-mounted satinwood amaraninth  inlaid corner cabinets, or encoignures,  by Thomas Chippendale the Younger.  As well as being of outstanding craftsmanship and beauty they are of historic interest. They were commissioned from Chippendale by the 2nd Duke of Leinster in 1775-80 for display in his Dublin townhouse, Leinster House (now the seat of the Oireachtas, the national parliament). On the sale of the house to the (Royal) Dublin Society in 1815 they went to another of the duke's homes, Carton House, County Kildare, where they remained for the next 150 years.
  The cabinets were recently  bought at auction in London by the Castletown Foundation and the Office of Public Works with the aid of a grant of €17,323 from the Friends of the National Collections of Ireland, and they can now be admired in Castletown House, Celbridge, County Kildare.  

The Leinster cabinets (Castletown House)

• Donation to the National Gallery of Ireland
• The Friends gave a grant of €10,000 to the NGI  to assist it to acquire nine drawings by Edward Lear (1812-1888) at Christies auction, London. They were done during a visit to County Wicklow in 1835 and show landscapes, views of round towers, Bray and the La Touche banqueting hall at Bellevue, where Lear stayed.
  While Lear is popularly remembered for his nonsense poems (such as The Owl and the Pussycat), he was, of course, a very talented artist who produced a wide range of works including beautiful views of Italy and the Holy Land.
  These are the first drawings by Lear to enter the NGI's collection.

• Donation to the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin
  The FNCI also donated €5,000 to the RIA towards the purchase from de Burca Rare Books, Dublin, of a particularly rare book. It is the script of the stage representation,
  with specially commissioned music, of Thomas Moore's famous poem Lalla Rookh at the Royal Palace, Berlin,on the occasion of the state visit on 27th January, 1822 of Archduke (later Czar) Nicholas of Russia and his wife to the King of Prussia.
  Thomas Moore (1779-1852), "Ireland's National Bard" and author of 'Moore's Melodies', composed the long oriental poem Lalla Rookh in 1817. It had an enormous success, was translated into many languages and was set to music by several composers including Robert Schumann. The volume contains the script of the Berlin performance along with the names of the royal courtiers who took parts in it as well as 23 superb colour plates showing the fantastic oriental costumes worn by the actors. Only six other copies have survived in public collections (2 in Berlin, 3 in the USA and one in the British Library). The present volume is especially important because it was Moore's own copy and carries his inscription. It had been part of his extensive library, which was donated to the RIA by his widow, less a number of items, including this one, which she kept for herself.  Now it has returned to its rightful place in his library.

​Gifts to the National Library of Ireland

• We purchased at auction, (Fonsie Mealy's) and presented to the National Library, the following items -each of them unique and of historical importance- which the Library had wished to obtain;
• - A letter written from Dublin Castle on 28 May 1807 by Sir Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, who was the Chief Secretary for Ireland, to an unidentified correspondent ('My dear Lord') describing the progress of the general election then taking place. It also discusses the distribution of posts to supporters of the government. While this practice was normal at the time Wellesley expresses indignation at  "the most indecent simoniacal arrangement in respect of the Deanery of Limerick that I ever heard of" which had been proposed by Lord Sligo.  €950 plus auctioneers' fees.
• - On 19 October 1845 Dr Richard Whately, the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, wrote a three-page letter to an unidentified correspondent in  which he described the destitution of the rural poor. The potato blight had struck in the previous month, and although the worst of the Great Famine was yet to come, Whately was in no doubt about the forthcoming tragedy: "I apprehend a dire mortality."  €750 plus fees.

• James Farrell Journal
• - The manuscript journal of James Farrell of Moynalty, County Meath, giving a detailed account of a journey which he and his brother made to Paris via Holyhead and London in May-June, 1822. He describes what they did and comments on what they saw, including the Louvre ("statues worth seeing but rather naked") and people: "The women in France are not in general as handsome as those in England, a few excepted, but they are less subject to vice" wrote this thoughtful Moynalty man.  €200 plus fees.

• Captain James O'Hara Letter
• - In 1767 Captain James O'Hara, R.N. of Cork decided to write a letter to the recently appointed Lord Lieutenant at Dublin Castle in which he combined some helpful advice with a request for a position at the Vice-regal court. He advised the Viceroy to treat his Irish subjects with flattery and fair speech ("a silken string may lead them by the nose"), entertain lavishly and keep an eye open for pilfering servants. Whether or not Viscount Townshend heeded the advice Captain O'Hara never became a Gentleman-at Large; he ended up in the humbler role of organising press gangs in Hull.  €130 plus fees. 

• Gifts to Johnstown Castle
   Following several years of conservation and refurbishment Johnstown Castle, County Wexford, has recently been opened to the public. While the beautiful castle gardens and grounds have been open for many years, the impressive castle itself, built in 1840, had not been available to visit until now. It is managed by the Irish Heritage Trust, on behalf of Teagasc, the State agricultural research body.
  The Friends of the National Collections of Ireland have marked this welcome development by presenting three paintings to the castle : a portrait of the second Countess of Aldborough by the Irish artist Philip Hussey (1713-1783) and two other Irish 18th century portraits of members of the Aldborough family.  The purchases were made at auction at Fonsie Mealy's for €22,570, of which €10,000 was contributed by an anonymous donor through the Irish Georgian Society.

• Self-portrait by Kathleen Fox
• The Friends have also made a grant of €8,000 to the National Self-Portrait Collection at the University of Limerick which assisted them to purchase at auction in London a fine self-portrait by Kathleen Fox (1880-1963), the Dublin-born artist best known for her flower studies.​​

Self-Portrait by Kathleen Fox (NSPCI)

• James Gandon Drawings
• The Friends donated to the Waterford Museum of Treasures, at their request, two large architectural drawings attributed to James Gandon,the architect of the Four Courts and the Custom House, Dublin. They show the plan of New Geneva, the proposed Swiss Huguenot settlement at Passage East, County Waterford, in 1780. In the event the project came to nothing owing to the disturbed state of the country, the Swiss left and today there is little to recall New Geneva other than the memory of the sad role its military barracks played in the suppression of the 1798 Rebellion, evoked in the well known ballad 'The Croppy Boy'. The drawings will feature in a forthcoming exhibition about New Geneva and the Huguenots at the Waterford Museum of Treasures.   €1000 plus fees.

• Catherine Maria Dawson Drawing
• We also donated to the Irish Architectural Archive a very fine coloured architectural drawing dated 17 January 1786 of "The Intended Military Infirmary", the building which today is Defence Forces Headquarters, at Parkgate, Dublin. The drawing is by the artist, Catherine Maria Dawson, later Countess of Charleville (1762-1851) and is a rare work of both historic and artistic interest. €900  plus fees.

• A Traitor's Gold
• One of the most remarkable objects to enter a public collection anywhere was obtained at auction by the National Museum of Ireland thanks to a grant of €10,000 by the Friends. From the darker side of our history, it is an inscribed gold medal which was presented in 1798 by the Guild of Merchants in Dublin to one Thomas Reynolds, in gratitude for what it described as his “truly honourable and important services”. Reynolds was an informer and the service he rendered was treachery: his betrayal to the Dublin Castle authorities of 16 of his friends, leaders of the 1798 Rebellion, among them Oliver Bond and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, leading to their deaths.  
• Our donation of this unique object to the Museum is a reminder that although the  FNCI is well known for its long history of giving works of art to Ireland’s public collections, another of our aims is to acquire objects of historical importance or interest for the country.
• Indeed, because nowadays the price of most works of art is beyond our very limited financial resources, we have in recent years acquired, at considerably less cost, a number of important manuscripts and objects which are part of our history and would otherwise be lost to the nation.

• Modern Paintings donated to the IMMA and Crawford Gallery
• However, two modern paintings which we have been lucky enough to acquire are “Head with Red Eye” by Kenneth Hall, a leading member of the White Stag Group (donated to the Irish Museum of Modern Art – IMMA) and “Horses” by Phelim Gibb, an Irish artist closely associated with the Fauve Movement, which we donated to the Crawford Gallery, Cork.

• Charles Mills Watercolour
• To commemorate the 90th anniversary of our foundation in 1924 a member of our Council presented to the National Gallery of Ireland a watercolour of a rural funeral procession in the West of Ireland by Charles Mills ARHA (1875 – 1922), an Irish artist who until now has not been represented in the national collection.

• St. Mary’s Abbey Manuscript
• An exciting acquisition by the library of Trinity College, Dublin has been assisted by a grant of €5,000 from the FNCI. It is an important early 14th century manuscript from St. Mary’s Abbey, Dublin. Auctioned by Christies in London, it is the only medieval Irish codex to come on the market for half a century. It left Ireland in the 16th century and it now returns to join a number of other items from the Abbey which have been in TCD for several centuries.

• 10 Medals from the Emergency
• Objects from a more recent era acquired at auction by the Friends and donated to the National Museum of Ireland at their request, were a set of 10 medals which were presented to the men and women who served in the various Services, including the civilian ones, during the 1939 – 1945 Emergency.
• The set is complete save for the 11th – the Defence Forces Chaplain's medal is missing. So if any generous reader of this website is able to help complete the set.... the Friends and the Museum await your call!

• William Deane Butler Drawings
• We recently paid for the conservation of 17 important but fragile architectural drawings of Kilkea Castle, Co. Kildare, done in 1849 for the Duke of Leinster by the distinguished Irish architect William Deane Butler, in the collection of the Royal Irish Academy (€3,000).

• Lady Alice Wimborne Letter
• An appropriate donation which the Friends made during the Centenary year of the Easter Rising 1916 to the National Library of Ireland was an account of the unfolding events written by Lady Alice Wimborne, wife of the Viceroy, in a 20 page letter to her mother from the Vice Regal Lodge during the course of Easter Week (2-5 May, 1916).Not many accounts of the 1916 Rising or of the War of Independence, written at the time by participants or eye witnesses, have survived, especially those from the British point of view, much less from the heart of their Establishment.
• Purchased at auction in Dublin for €1,400 and fees.

• Tom Kettle Rug
• On the 1st of July, 1916 one of the greatest battles of the First World War, the Battle of the Somme, commenced. Before it ended five months later - having achieved nothing - there were over a million casualties, among them many Irishmen in the British Army. One of the most famous was Tom Kettle, poet, professor of economics at University College Dublin and Nationalist MP. He is commemorated in St. Stephen's Green, Dublin, by his portrait bust with poignant lines from his best known poem, "To My Daughter Betty, the Gift of God", written shortly before his death. One hundred years later, on the 1st of July, 2016, Matthew Russell, vice-president of the FNCI, presented the National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks, through the Friends, with the rug which Kettle had with him in the trenches. It had been sent back to his widow, Mary Sheehy Kettle, after he was killed, and was later given by her to the donor's mother.

• Thomas Mac Donagh Papers
• In the Centenary year of the Easter Rising Matthew Russell also presented family papers of Thomas Mac Donagh to the Thomas Mac Donagh Museum, Cloughjordan, Co. Tipperary, birthplace of the executed patriot. They include, inter alia, literary works and plays of Thomas Mac Donagh, mss of published works of his mother, correspondence and a family bible. There is also a printer's block from the machine (now lost) on which was printed the Proclamation of Independence, of which Thomas Mac Donagh was one of the seven signatories in Easter Week, 1916.

• The Headfort Mirrors in Waterford
• While many of the major cultural institutions, such as the National Gallery, National Library and National Museum are in the capital, the Friends of the National Collections of Ireland have always recognised the importance to the country of the provincial and local museums and galleries and we have sought to support them over the years by donations of art and historic objects or grants of money to help their own acquisitions. We have given to over 50 such institutions throughout the island of Ireland in this way, ranging from the Fermanagh County Museum, Enniskillen, to the Irish Jewish Museum, Dublin.
• One of the most vibrant of these institutions is the Waterford Museum of Treasures (WMT). It is also one of the most recently established, though Waterford Corporation’s careful habit over many centuries of not throwing anything away has luckily resulted in that city’s always having had an unrivalled archive of its history, until now not generally accessible to the public. The Museum is comprised of three venues in the city; the Viking Museum in Reginald’s Tower (1180 AD), Ireland’s first Medieval Museum in the Choristers’ Hall (13th to 15th century) and the magnificently restored Bishop's Palace (1743 AD).
• We recently gave a grant of €10,000 to the fund which the WMT is building up for the purchase of the set of 3 important 18th century “Dragon” Headfort Mirrors. They are at present on loan to the Bishop's Palace from the Marquis of Headfort, whose ancestor, Sir Thomas Taylor, commissioned them in 1753 for his Dublin townhouse from Thomas Johnson, one of the foremost mirror makers in Ireland and Britain. They are on display along with other items donated by the FNCI  in the Palace's Withdrawing Room, appropriately, because that room is now named after the FNCI to mark our support.

• Portrait   Returns   to   Castletown
   The Friends gave a grant to assist the purchase at auction in London of a beautiful painting attributed to  Jan van Belcamp (1610-1653) and its return to Ireland. It is a portrait of King Charles I and was formerly part of the collection in Castletown House, Celbridge, County Kildare, Speaker Conolly's great house  in the care of the OPW and the Castletown Foundation, where it is now on public display.

• Emperor's niece not good enough for the Wyses of Waterford
• ​The Friends of the National Collections of Ireland also donated €7,500 to the Waterford Museum of Treasures towards the purchase at auction of the Wyse Papers, the records dating back to 1315 of one of the most important Waterford families (one of its members, Thomas Wyse, married Laetitia Bonaparte, a niece of the Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, despite the disapproval of the Wyse family, who regarded her as unsuitable).
• The survival of such a large corpus of family records, covering a period of six centuries, is quite rare in Ireland, owing to our turbulent history. They include a Letters Patent issued on the 22nd of March 1758 by King George II granting a royal pardon to John Wyse for having served in the Irish Brigade under King Louis of France. This enabled him to return to Ireland without danger of arrest and to succeed in due course to his father’s estate.

• Grant to National Library of Ireland
• The Friends gave a grant of €10,000 to the National Library of Ireland towards the purchase at auction of the very important papers of Senator James Douglas, a significant figure in political life in the early years of the Irish Free State. The papers cover a variety of subjects, including the drafting of the Free State Constitution which preceded the present Constitution adopted by the People in 1937; letters from Michael Collins; the work of the White Cross during the Civil War and the proposed Divorce Bill of 1925. The Douglas collection will be an important source for historians and people interested in research into the formative years of the State.

• Cyril Arthur Farey Drawings
• At our Annual General Meeting we presented two important architectural drawings to the Irish Architectural Archive. They are by Cyril Arthur Farey (1888-1954), who is regarded as the leading architectural draughtsman of his time in these islands and they show the design for the proposed Limerick civic offices and the Limerick Regional Hospital. Our President, Dr John Gilmartin, spotted them in an auction in Dublin and generously purchased them and gave them to the Friends.
• We have donated them to the IAA in memory of Jeremy Williams, for many years an active member of our Council as well as a distinguished architect. It was also a thank you to the Archive who allow us to hold our regular Council meetings in their fine premises on Merrion Square.

• Róisín Murray self-portrait
• Mr Michael Murray has kindly presented to the Friends a self-portrait of the artist Róisín Murray (1894-1980). We have donated it to the National Self-Portrait Collection at the University of Limerick.
• Through the good offices of our Council member, Dr Hilary Carey, Dr Cormac MacFhionnlaith and the Mc Ginley family have given us the presumed portrait of the Gaelic Leaguer Claude Chevasse (1885-1971) in national costume, painted by Padraic Woods RUA. We have given it to the Waterford County Museum in Dungarvan. It is our first donation to this museum, which was established comparatively recently, in accordance with our policy of assisting local and regional museums wherever possible.

• Kevin Gaffney Video
• The Friends also facilitated the generous donation to the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) by our member, Mr F.X. Buckley and our Honorary Treasurer, Dr Michael Burns, of a contemporary work: a HD video entitled "Everything Disappears 2014" by Kevin Gaffney

• Grant to National Library of Ireland
• Because of lack of funds when needed, our efforts frequently fail. Thus we recently have been unable to respond to requests from several of our national cultural institutions for financial assistance in making important acquisitions. For example, we were recently disappointed in our efforts, with the National Museum, to acquire a rug design by Eileen Gray, as well as a group of portraits of the Osborne family of Waterford for that city's museum, being out-bid in both cases.
• However, we managed to give a grant of €1,000 to the National Library of Ireland enabling it to purchase two important archives of documents: those of the O'Mahony family of Kerry and Wicklow, covering several centuries, and of Sir Arthur Vicars, the ill-fated Ulster King of Arms. A genealogist, he had longed for the post for many years. The papers include a letter from his brother alerting him that the incumbent, Sir Bernard Burke, was gravely ill; "You should move at once" he urged. Sir Arthur got the job, but it ended abruptly in 1907 when the Irish Crown Jewels were stolen from a safe in his office in Dublin Castle on the eve of a royal visit. They were never recovered. Coincidentally, our annual general meeting, at which our donation for the papers was announced, took place in the State Apartments of Dublin Castle - across the courtyard from Sir Arthur's old office, with its empty safe.

• Port of Waterford Engraving
• The Friends purchased at auction, and donated to the Waterford Museum of Treasures, a hand coloured engraving of the Port of Waterford, 1835. This large and attractive work with its cartouche of the Hook Head lighthouse is now displayed in the Bishop's Palace (1743) and forms part of the museum's display of maritime charts showing the development of the port over centuries, starting with Sebastian Munster's 1550 map of 
  Ireland  - in which the only place on the island that is identified  is Waterford !

• Grant to Newry and Mourne Museum
• We have been happy to assist the Newry and Mourne Museum with a grant of €1,180 for their purchase of two paintings by the Newry-born artist Margaret Clarke (1884-1964). They are portraits of her son David, showing him in early and in later childhood. She was the wife of the gifted stained glass artist Harry Clarke, and took on the management of his Dublin studio following his early death in 1931.  But she was a highly  talented artist in her own right, as was amply demonstrated in in the comprehensive exhibition of her work in oils and crayon at the National Gallery of Ireland during summer 2017 and subsequently at the F.E.McWilliam Gallery, Banbridge, County Down.​

• A Proposed Emporium for Capel Street
  A fine architectural drawing was acquired for €305 at auction in England and presented to the Irish Architectural Archive at their request. It shows a handsome commercial premises which was intended for the Dublin merchants Hugh Moore & Co. of Capel Street, Dublin.
   It is by William Fogerty, a well-known 19th century architect, and although the emporium was never built, the plan amply demonstrates the self-confidence of the city's merchant class of the time.

• How You can Help
• Most of the galleries and museums in Ireland, especially outside Dublin, have very limited funds (in some cases none at all) for adding new acquisitions to their collections. As a result many objects, including parts of our national heritage, are lost to the country rather than being made available for the education and pleasure of the Irish public. Our only source of income is our members' annual subscriptions and the very occasional bequest or donation. We are an entirely voluntary organisation, with no paid officers or staff.
• If you believe that we are doing useful work for our country, please support us by joining the FNCI, sending us a donation or leaving us a     bequest in your will. Because the majority of the grants which the FNCI gives to galleries and museums are quite modest in amount, any donation which you give us, however small, will help and will be very welcome. You can send it to our Honorary Treasurer, P.O. Box 11481, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4 and you will be sent a receipt.
• Our registered Charity  number for tax purposes is CHY 5214.
• To join the FNCI is easy: Just click HERE. ​