HELEN MOLONEY: HELEN MOLONEY, who has died aged 85, was a stained-glass artist who did much of her work in the churches designed by architect Liam McCormick. Her first commission was for Desertegney in Donegal, a church by Liam McCormick that looks over the sea and is in the shape of a boat with high porthole-like windows. Her designs for the windows are of maritime Christian symbols in strong primary colours.
She did 11 commissions for McCormick, including the church at Burt, Donegal. At Creeslough, Donegal, the simple interior is enriched by six vibrant stained-glass windows slit into the wall. Helen also designed the colourful altar tapestry that was worked by Veronica Rowe. At Fossa in Kerry, she did the insets in the main doors. At Clogher, in Tyrone, she designed the main doors.
Helen Moloney was born in Tipperary where her father’s family owned a medical hall and her grandfather was a TD. They were a very republican family, particularly her mother, Kathleen née Barry, who had been asked by de Valera in 1922 to go with the Countess Markievicz as a member of the republican delegation to the US. Kathleen Barry’s youngest brother was Kevin Barry.
Jim Moloney, Helen’s father, had been director of communications on Liam Lynch’s staff and was arrested in the Glen of Aherlow and imprisoned in various internment camps. On his release, though he was trained as a chemist, he had difficulty getting employment but eventually worked for the Irish Sugar Company. His wife, in spite of having five children, was for a period the main breadwinner, being sales publicity adviser with the ESB.
In spite of this remarkable background, Helen had no interest in politics or in the civil war.
She and her twin sister were the eldest of the family – her younger sister, Katherine, became the wife of the poet Patrick Kavanagh.
Just before her 14th birthday, Helen entered as a part-time student at the National College of Art and Design on the strength of a picture she had painted of marigolds. She studied there with Art O’Murnahan and, with various bursaries and awards, continued at the NCAD, graduating in 1948. She went to Paris for nine months to do life drawing, and while there visited the galleries and spent time gazing at the stained glass in Notre Dame, which deeply affected her.
On her return to Dublin, she moved into a studio flat on Waterloo Road, where she stayed for the rest of her life. For the next 13 years she supported herself by teaching part-time at Blackrock Technical School.
The Evie Hone Memorial Exhibition in 1958 convinced her that stained glass should be her medium, so she learnt the techniques at NCAD and then worked as an assistant to Patrick Pollen in his studio beside An Tur Gloine, The Tower of Glass, a co-operative workshop for stained glass, mosaics and other related crafts, before setting up on her own. She also worked on three churches for the architect Richard Hurley. Her last, and one of her finest, works is in St Stephen’s church in Killiney.
In her early 60s, after trying for six months and failing to complete a commission, she stopped making stained glass.
Helen was always reticent about her work, never spoke about it and seldom if ever returned to look at it. Though when she attended a confirmation in a church in Ballymun for which she had done the stained glass, she did say, “Not as bad as I thought.” She was elected to Aosdána in 1982.
Helen Moloney: born January 2nd, 1926; died March 11th, 2011