‘Iwastalkedinto buying a cottage thatwas“safeas gold”–ittook10 yearstosellitand move to Dublin’

Patricia Hurl has been one of Ireland’s most accomplished artists since the 1980s. Last year, the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) held a major retrospective exhibition of her work, called Irish Gothic. It featured some 70 works, including The Company Wife painting from 1986. IMMA, which purchased a number of her works, and the Tipperary Arts Office are bringing Irish Gothic to the South Tipperary Arts Centre in Clonmel and the Source in Thurles in May and June. Hurl, who is part of a collective of older creative women called Na Cailleacha, lives on the Tipperary-Offaly border with her partner Therry Rudin, a Swiss artist.

How did your upbringing shape your relationship with money?

It influenced me entirely. My dad, a Catholic from a small farm on the Derry-Antrim border who was born in 1894, was a national school teacher and was very political and upright. He was involved in the troubles of 1922.

After he met my mother, they moved to Dublin and bought their first house on Charleston Avenue (in Ranelagh). We never had a car, our bikes were shared, our clothes were mostly made by Mam, while Dad made costumes, coats and eiderdowns. Our leather sandals were re-soled till the tops were indistinguishable from our poor feet.

He was very frugal and we always thought he was mean – all our friends had nylons without tell-tale mends. We only discovered when he died and his will was read that he had savings of just IR£500 and had no health insurance.

His priorities were to get us a secondary education, which in those days was very expensive for ordinary people. Looking back, I don’t know how my parents managed.

When were you most broke?

In the early 60s. I was 20 when I got married. My husband was a cooper in Guinness – a good catch in those days. Because my Mam was dead and my older sisters were leaving home, my Dad was lonely and he offered us a place in the house.

Our bedroom was the only place we had to ourselves. We felt lucky as we’d tried to find a flat but nobody took babies. Fianna Fáil was in power and Éamon de Valera, my Dad’s hero, was president.

When the government began a scheme to build housing estates in the suburbs and help young people obtain mortgages, we were the experiment. Many guards and nurses got these homes and many inner-city families were given help to move from flats. We were all thrown together to live in harmony.

Do you have a pension?

Yes, from my lecturing position at DIT College of Art and Design (now TU Dublin). I was a latecomer to college and didn’t get my first full-time post till I was in my 30s.

Have you ever seen anyone spend money in a way that shocked you?

I’m shocked at what 4x4s and Land Rovers etc are doing to our cities and our environment.

What was your biggest ever financial mistake?

I was talked into buying a cottage in Clare. The bank told us we could get an interest-only loan and that we could never go wrong with cottages in Clare as “they are as safe as gold”, only to discover when we wanted move back to Dublin that we couldn’t sell the cottage. It took us 10 years. The county council took it off our hands, but we were left awash.

What was your worst ever job?

Working at Williams & Woods, a huge chocolate, sweets, and jam factory on Loftus Lane in Dublin, when I was 18. I was a comptometer (key-driven mechanical calculator) operator. All of us women typists were together in a huge barn with an old cranky supervisor. We’d have to raise our hand to be allowed to use the toilet as she peered at her watch to check the time. You’d get a cup of tea and broken biscuits at 11.