Here’s a wedding I did in the Harvey’s Point Hotel, Donegal a few weeks ago. It’s a lovely lakeside setting and the weather was fantastic. The groom is an officer in the Irish Naval Service, so a lot of the guests were wearing ceremonial swords, which is actually the last thing a caricature artist needs to see. Thankfully no one unsheathed.
I was entertaining in the Tara Hotel, Killybegs in Donegal a few weeks ago (I’ve done loads of gigs in the last few months, which leaves very little time for blogging!). I took the kids up and made a weekend of it, as I don’t really get up that often. The weather was bloody scary actually, it lashed rain and made the journey to Greencastle about 5 hours.
The trip down to Killybegs didn’t take too long though, and the manager in the Tara Hotel couldn’t have been more helpful, he was even rounding guests up for me while I was drawing! I’d a great spot, looking out over the harbour, and my sitters sat in front of the window while the rest of the guests peered down from the balcony behind me. There was plenty of catcalling, until it was their turn to sit for me! Great craic and a lovely bunch of guests.
I was explaining to my dad how Google worked tonight, so by way of illustration I googled his name and got this page from MovilleInishowen.com. My dad had quite a reputation as a footballer in his youth playing for Moville Celtic (that’s him, 2nd from left in the front row), but was one of a number of local players that retired early due to family commitments (in his case getting married). In 1975 they got together to form the Moville Rejects and entered the Eamonn Gillen Memorial Cup. You can read the full story here.
In 2004 the team had a reunion. Apparently “Hubert Cavanagh team centre-forward in ‘75 was a huge success as MC on the night”. That made me laugh. Football may have skipped this generation but a big part of my live caricatures is as raconteur with my sitters and the audience, so that seems to have caught!
This is the team as they appeared in ‘04. Note my dad still has all his own hair. That, also, has skipped a generation. And well done on the Smithwicks Cup Dad!
This is a caricature I did for the Inishowen Independent in December 2007. I never caught the chap’s name, but I’ll update the post when I find it!
UPDATE: It’s Liam O’Connor from Culdaff!
Me on Culch.ie
