Prints of Sean Keating’s famous ‘Men Of The South’ painting now available at Crawford Gallery

HIGH QUALITY REPRODUCTIONS AVAILABLE AT CRAWFORD ART GALLERY FOR JUST €16

IT is perhaps the most famous painting from Ireland’s fight for freedom and now 100 years on from its acquisition by Crawford Art Gallery, those with an interest in the history of North Cork’s part in that epic struggle have a chance to purchase their own version of Sean Keating’s Men of the South.

Limerick born Keating began work on the painting in the shadow of the War of Independence when, following the Truce of July 1921, a group of volunteers drawn from Sean Moylan’s Flying Column of the Cork No 2 Brigade of the IRA in North Cork visited the artist in Dublin. According to Moylan’s granddaughter, Aideen Carroll, writing in History Ireland, the painting’s origins can be traced to Moylan’s capture by the British in May 1921 and his subsequent friendship with the man who defended him on a charge of “possession of arms and levying war against the Crown.”

Moylan’s solicitor, Barry O’Sullivan from Mallow had engaged counsel, Albert Wood KC and he obtained a writ of habeas corpus and Moylan had his death sentence commuted to 15 years penal servitude but within months he was released under the terms of the Truce.

According to Ms Carroll, it was the start of a lifelong friendship between Moylan and art lover Wood, who introduced the IRA commander to the young artist, Sean Keating, who asked him if he would sit for his portrait wearing the clothes in which he stood trial.

The resulting portrait, painted in August 1921, was exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) the following year but in talking to Moylan during these sittings, Keating became familiar with the background and attitude of the fighting men of North Cork.

“Wood was also a constant visitor to the studio, and the idea came to him that such men and their actions were the raw material for a painting that would capture for posterity the history and spirit of this troubled period,” said Ms Carroll, writing in History Ireland.

“Thus, it was in the autumn of 1921 that Moylan set about rounding up a number of his comrades from the IRA’s North Cork Brigade. He arranged for them to travel to Dublin with their guns so that they could sit for Keating in his studio at the Metropolitan School of Art, Kildare Street.”

In Keating’s 1951 memoir of the event, the artist recalled that he was working in the Metropolitan School of Art “when the porter rushed in breathless and pop-eyed to say the hall is full of men with guns and they’re looking for you!”

“Never before or since”, said Keating,“have I so impressed a porter as when I answered nonchalantly, ‘all right bring them up.’” That wasn’t the end of it, however: “when the shock of the invasion . . . had worn off and the Department of Education had dried its pants”, he was ordered off the premises.

He got permission to set up his studio in the Mansion House instead. This arrangement wasn’t very satisfactory, as the light was completely different, but in any case, it didn’t last long, and Keating was ejected again. He returned to Kildare Street to paint a second version of Men of the South.

The first version of Men of the South included Moylan and is now in Aras an Uachtaran, but the second and better-known version is missing Moylan, who fearing that the July 1921 truce might not hold, thought it unwise to provide the British with a picture of himself.

The resultant work features some of the most active members of Moylan’s Flying Column, all clearly recognisable - Jim Riordan and James Cashmen from Kiskeam, John Jones from

Ballydesmond, Denny Mullane from Freemount, Roger Kiely from Cullen and Dan Browne from Meelin.

“They trooped in, dressed and armed very much as they must have been on many an ambush,” recalled Keating, who painted the figures one by one and later observed critically that the new picture was not as coherent as the first version because of the resulting piecemeal approach.

Exhibited in 1922 at both the Munster Fine Arts Club and Royal Hibernian Academy, Men of the South excited much discussion in the press with a writer in The Irish Independent exhorting Cork County Council and Cork Corporation to come together and fund its purchase.

“I do hope the Cork County Council will join with the Cork Corporation in buying this historical monument; a better monument to the “boys” they cannot buy or erect for six times the price. It is only £250 and half that to either of these bodies should be only a trifle,” urged the writer.

Purchased by the Crawford in 1924 through the Gibson Bequest Fund, the painting was recently the subject of a new Virtual Reality experience, ‘Sit Stand Smoke’ where visitors were able to immerse themselves in a VR headset to explore the circumstances behind the creation of the painting.

The painting was already well known to people in North Cork thanks to its featuring on the cover of JJ Riordan’s 1973 study of the War of Independence in western Duhallow, ‘Kiskeam versus The Empire’ which he dedicated to his father, Jim and his comrades who had fought against Crown forces.

“This book is a tribute to all the patriotic men and women in my own part of the country, to the named and the nameless, who bore hardship with humour and sought nothing but the liberation of their beloved country and that their children and their children’s children might be born free,” he said.

The painting has reached an even wider audience in recent years, first in 2017 when Cork University Press used it as the cover illustration for its award-winning publication, Atlas of The Irish Revolution, and then in 2020 when An Post featured it on a stamp to commemorate the War of Independence.

But now, art lovers and history buffs can acquire their copy of Keating’s acclaimed work, which, according to a Crawford Art Gallery spokesperson, is “a high-quality reproduction of the painting in A2 size poster form and is available from the gallery gift shop for a highly affordable €16.”