Alwyn Gillespie was a wonderfully talented artist and art teacher. She worked in many different media but it is for her beautiful watercolours that she is best remembered. She had a magical way with that medium and was a master of capturing a picture, whether a vase of flowers or a life figure, with a few deft strokes of her brush. One of her favourite subjects was the one-minute pose at life drawing in the United Arts Club where she was a regular on Thursday evenings. Her paintings are on walls all around Ireland, and beyond. On the day before her funeral, while having a reflective pint with a mutual schoolfriend, Brian Whiteside (humanist celebrant at her funeral), I noticed a fine painting of hers on the back wall of Grogan’s pub — a favourite watering hole of Alwyn’s and her many friends. Down the street in the Palace Bar resides another striking piece of Alwyn’s work: a cast bronze head of the late journalist Con Houlihan. She also worked in ceramics and printmaking, and was a courtroom artist for a number of Irish newspapers and TV stations.
Born in Dublin, Alwyn spent her early childhood living in Sutton, along with her brothers Paul and Julian and sister Sarah. I first met her when we were both aged 12 and newly-arrived boarders at Newtown School in Waterford, run by Quakers. A progressive school, it encouraged pupils to develop all their capabilities, whether academic, technical or artistic. A dedicated art studio, including a pottery kiln, undoubtedly helped to set Alwyn out on her artistic career. She studied at the National College of Art and Design and in Belfast School of Art. Back in Dublin, after graduation, she met Irish Times foreign editor Peter Frostrup and they had two children: Finn and Anna. Her life, however was not to be without tragedy. Peter died suddenly when Finn was five years old and Anna was just one, and Anna died five years later after a long illness. Happily, Finn and his wife Jess now have three children Giacomo, Giorgia and Bruno, whom Alwyn adored.
Alwyn was always a true and loyal support for her friends — and there are many who loved and admired her and her great sense of humour. During the first Covid lockdown, in the spring of 2020, she initiated a WhatsApp group which she called “Alwyn’s picture a day” for her friends and she encouraged artists among her group to paint and upload a picture on a daily basis. This turned out to be a great support, especially for those artists who were cocooning alone. Among Alwyn’s own paintings was a lovely series of Irish birds, which she painted right up to her final days. Later, and shortly before she died on September 11th, 2021, her friend Pat Pidgeon produced this collection of watercolour birds as a book titled Gillespie’s Glorious Birds, with accompanying text by Jack Harte. One of the paintings in the book is of a heron that lived in Dublin City Basin, just behind her home on Primrose Avenue. As a tribute to her life and work, her friends commissioned a bronze plaque, based on her heron watercolour. This has now been erected, with the support of Dublin City Council, on the wall of the City Basin, close to where she lived and worked. It will be unveiled by fellow artist and friend Constance Short on June 22nd, to celebrate the day that would have been Alwyn’s 74th birthday.