A Dublin born artist, Ernest Columba Hayes was a student at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art in the years 1931 to 1934, where he studied under Seán Keating and had his first painting accepted by the Royal Hibernian Academy while still a student there.
He went on to regularly show at the RHA for the rest of his life. He joined the Dublin Sketching Club in 1935 later becoming the clubs secretary.
