Robert Donough O'Brien
Birthdate:
1844
Death:
1917
Immediate Family:
Son of William Smith O'Brien and Lucy Caroline O'Brien
Brother of Edward William O'Brien; William Joseph O'Brien; Lucy Josephine Gwynn; Very Reverend Lucius Henry O'Brien;
Charlotte Grace O'Brien and 1 other
Donough was a truly eccentric man, born in 1844, he was only
Lucy Gwynn
Lucy Gwynn was born in County Donegal in Ireland. Her father John Gwynn was a Syriacist
and Regius Professor of Divinity at Trinity College Dublin. Her mother was Lucy O'Brien,
daughter of MP William Smith O'Brien. Her eight brothers included the author and politician
Stephen Gwynn, the academic Edward Gwynn, the career soldier Major General Sir Charles
Gwynn, the cricketers Lucius Gwynn and Arthur Gwynn, the academic cleric and social
reformer Robin Gwynn, the Indian civil servant and journalist Jack Gwynn and the Irish civil
servant Brian Gwynn. She had one sister, Mary Gwynn, the wife of Henry Bowen and
stepmother of the writer Elizabeth Bowen. She was a niece of Harriet Monsell (1812-1883)
Lucy Gwynn was appointed Trinity College Dublin in February 1905.
Trinity College had
Despite coming from a family of academics Lucy Gwynn had been unable to get a university
education herself. She was 39 years old when appointed to her position in the university.
In 1922, the Dublin University Women Graduates’ Association was founded, under Lucy
Gwynn's presidency.
Lucy Gwynn never married. As an eldest daughter she was required to assist in the
management of her parents' household and attend to them in their old age. From her mother's
brother Robert Donough O'Brien (1844-1917), an architect, she inherited the house he had
designed and built at Parteen-a-Lax in County Clare, close to Limerick town. It was there that
she retired at the end of her working life. Her hobby was tending its beautiful garden which lay
next to the river Shannon.
Geraldine O'Brien
Geraldine Mary O’Brien was born on 27th February 1922 in Limerick to father Donough Richard O’Brien and mother Cicely Maud Carus-Wilson. Artistic abilities ran through her blood as her mother was a successful artist, as well as her cousins Dermod O’Brien, Brigid Ganly, and Kitty Wilmer O’Brien. She honed her craft and was educated in Dublin, eventually defining herself as a botanical artist, working primarily with oils.
At the age of 17, O’Brien was winning prizes from London’s Royal Drawing Society, and by 18 she was exhibiting at the Royal Hibernian Academy, a place she would exhibit consistently throughout her career.
Her professional career began to take off around the time of the second world war, and this meant it was near impossible to travel to study in other locations. O’Brien did not let this effect her creativity, as during this period she turned her hand to mechanical period until she ultimately returned to still lives of botanical scenes.
After her studies in Dublin she was led back to Limerick where she worked in her studio, or ‘The Piggery’ as it was known. She would bring plants that she grew in her garden into the studio and would work directly with them. Her work is always rich in colour and brings life to the canvas with realism and depth.
A proud Limerick woman, she lived with her husband, David Coote Hely Hutchinson, in Parteen from 1948, until she padded away in 2014.
