The touching memoir of 1924 from artist William Orpen, Stories of Old Ireland and Myself, exudes deep admiration and respect for Sarah Purser. Orpen presents her as a guardian angel for aspiring writers, painters, sculptors and so on, an incredible lady. Orpen lauds Purser for her immense talent in portrait painting, recognises her stained-glass studio, An Túr Gloine’s achievements, and the splendour of her salon at Mespil House, a Georgian mansion next to the Grand Canal that was her home for many years. However, he refers to Purser in a somewhat enigmatic tone as “once cosmopolitan, but now firmly Irish”. It’s uncertain if Orpen wished to intimate at a reduction of scope following the Irish Revolution, an event towards which his feelings were mixed. Purser’s world, the subject of a fresh exhibition at the Hugh Lane Gallery, was unquestionably cosmopolitan but also uniquely Irish and creatively contemporary.
Once she had returned to Ireland from her training at the Académie Julian in Paris in 1879, Purser found her homeland on the brink of transforming dramatically. The agricultural sector was in crisis due to the low-cost goods from America and consecutive poor harvests, causing the ongoing Land War. This would eventually lead to a subtle revolution as the laws transferred ownership from the landlords to their tenants. Oscar Wilde’s character Lady Bracknell remarked in 1895, “these days, land gives you a place but hinders you from maintaining it”. The rising socio-political turmoil was intelligently manipulated by Charles Stewart Parnell and the Irish Party at Westminster, which had by 1886 pushed Home Rule to the forefront of political discourse. The long-standing Protestant hegemony was being questioned and there were already signs of opposition against the Home Rule in the northeast.
Purser’s principal sphere was Dublin, but it’s crucial to consider the broader perspective. Similar to her intimate friends, the Yeatses, she was part of a Protestant lineage that had known wealth and prestige in the past from businesses such as brewing and engineering. These families had seen a decrease in their fortunes, however, a measure of social dominance persisted. Affiliation to the upper-middle-class circles of Trinity College Dublin, Dublin Castle, and the Royal Dublin Society could be traced, with the Purser family maintaining a noteworthy presence. The social and economical clout of the Protestant group disproportionately outmatched their population, and backing for the unionist institution prevailed, helped by vociferous grassroots entities such as the Protestant Working Men’s Association on York Street. This was near John Butler Yeats’s studio, and the Protestants were overrepresented in professional and commercial high-ranks.
Nevertheless, Purser, and acquaintances like John Butler Yeats and his offspring, realised that more diverse spheres needed exploration, like the Contemporary Club established by their shared comrade, Charles Oldham. This club was a hub for energetic exchanges on literature and politics. Here, on Grafton Street, they met icons representing alternate traditions, such as the veteran Fenian, John O’Leary. John Butler Yeats later acknowledged the influence O’Leary had on them, prompting a shift in their perspective. Purser was a frequent visitor to this club, where she often met with radical nationalist Maud Gonne, who became a dear friend and subject of several paintings. Purser was notably among the rare individuals who could put Gonne in her place, as was evidenced by WB Yeats during a meeting in Paris. However, their companionship also provided Purser connections to the Irish women’s suffrage movement and the emerging feminist wave influencing many women of her era.
Possessing a notably resolute character, insightful mind and an innovative spirit, coupled with a knack for forming friendships and unifying people, Purser paved her unique journey to emerge as the most prosperous Irish vignette creator of her era. Establishing links with the outer world away from the stringent doctrines and constraints of the Dublin elite was facilitated through companions like Oldham, Gonne, and the Yeatses. Orpen’s autobiography regretfully reflects on the severe societal bifurcation between Protestants and Catholics, which he satirically depicted as “Dogs” and “Cats”. Еlizabeth Bowen, reminiscing about her early years in Dublin during the birth of the 20th century, perceived Catholics as residents of a distinct, parallel universe. They were treated with polite aloofness and were merely considered “the others”, living in a realm parallel to ours but devoid of any contact.
Bowen resided at Herbert Place, nestled at the heart of Pembroke Estate, which, akin to Rathmines, maintained its own class identity. Rathmines was expertly ridiculed by the revolutionary Sidney Gifford, a member of a formidable group of sisters resolute on overthrowing the norms of their traditional origins. “Its resemblance was closer to a waxworks museum than anything else. The individuals who inhabited our surroundings were eerily lifelike yet stationary replicas of prominent English figures. Rathmines was not just any phenomenon, not a community bound by race, nor a political fortress, but rather a spiritual state. Its inhabitants were shipwrecks, accidentally stranded on this land named Ireland.” Bowen recounted that in her juvenile years, she held no clue as to what transpired beyond the northern tip of Sackville, now known as O’Connell Street, excluding the vivid notion that it was somewhat unnerving.
Reinterpreting Dublin purely through the lens of the era spanning the end of the 19th century and the onset of the 20th century, or alternatively as James Joyce’s “paralysis epicentre”, fails to acknowledge the diversity nested in a city hovering on the brink of transformation. Dublin’s alternative side waited to be discovered. The dense maze of lanes encompassing Sackville Street housed outlets selling rebellious literature, including the famous newsagent Tom Clarke on Great Britain Street, now renamed as Parnell Street. Powerful groups had established their main bases within this district; take for example Gonne’s Inghínídhe na hÉireann on North Great George’s Street.
The compact city centre encouraged proximity; the brief Harcourt Terrace stretch by the canal, which initially hosted Purser’s residence and studio prior to her shift to Mespil House, also accommodated the nationalist intellectual Diarmuid Coffey, the renowned custodian Thomas Lister, Gaelic League member Douglas Hyde, and rebel lawyer Ned Stephens, a relative of JM Synge. Purser is widely remembered for her impressive depictions of Hyde and Coffey. Furthermore, Rathmines’ Belgrave Road, despite being the subject of Gifford’s ridicule, harboured influential voting rights activists Francis and Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, nationalist medical professional and activist Kathleen Lynn with her partner Madeleine ffrench-Mullen, and eventually Clarke’s widow, Kathleen. This neighbourhood was informally referred to as Rebel Road.
Meanwhile, Dublin, often referred to as the “empire’s secondary city”, was gradually updating, radicalising, and reshaping itself in numerous aspects. Although primarily focused on services, the city possessed an industrial backbone represented by the tremendous Guinness brewery (where Purser smartly invested any spare cash she had), Jacob’s biscuit manufacturing centre, Cantrell & Cochrane’s fizzy water plant, and large-scale construction firms. The city’s connectivity was commendably modern, boasting an efficient telegraph system and a sophisticated telephone network by 1900. Motor vehicles quickly became a common sight across the city. (Even Purser purchased one in 1913.) The city’s transport landscape underwent a radical makeover with the introduction of the electric tram network, a central piece in the growing empire of Dublin’s leading capitalist, William Martin Murphy known for his ownership of the popular daily, The Irish Independent Newspaper and various hotels.
Dublin was, first and foremost, a hub of culture. It was home to a vibrant music scene, regularly attracting international opera groups, and hosted groundbreaking performances at the RDS that featured pieces by contemporary European composers. Dubliners embraced the emerging medium of cinema, an interest that significantly enthralled Joyce, and were handsomely catered to by a vibrant and extensive variety of newspapers. Moreover, the city experienced an overwhelming wave of cultural resurgence, a shift that George Moore designated as the relocation of the “sceptre of intelligence” from London to Dublin. This resurgence included the establishment of the Gaelic League, the Abbey Theatre, and the artistic endeavours of Dun Emer and Cuala, initiated by the Yeats sisters, Elizabeth and Susan.
Purser, once the close acquaintance of the newfound celebrity WB Yeats, made a lasting imprint of him through her art, much like Gonne’s image. Inferences about her feelings on their infamous relationship could be gleaned from her commentary on Iseult Gonne’s wedding with Francis Stuart: “So you have married your poet. Your mother had more sense.”
Purser was an audience member during Hyde’s significant lecture “On the Necessity for de-Anglicising the Irish People,” delivered to the National Literary Society in November 1892. The revival and reassessment of Gaelic traditions celebrated Ireland’s raw beauty – a source of inspiration for artists at a time when rural socio-economic issues propelled the co-operative movement and government bodies like the congested-districts board and the department of agriculture and technical instruction. Yet, this drive for a cultural renaissance and the ensuing political radicalisation, were founded in the city of Dublin.
Purser’s friend Hugh Lane’s ambition to establish a gallery showcasing modern art, specifically the works of French impressionist painters he had astutely acquired, was another aspect of the national revival. Purser was an impassioned advocate for the project, reflecting her enduring ties to France and its art culture. However, Lane’s ambition faced opposition from several factions, including Dublin Corporation, which held influence over most sectors of the city, and William Martin Murphy.
Critics have suggested that the wealth spent on art endowments could have been better used dealing with the less affluent areas of the city, such as the Pembroke Estate and Rathmines, which contrasted immensely with the dire living conditions of Dublin’s lower class. This issue was underscored by several tenement tragedies which occurred in 1902, 1909 and 1911. Sarah Purser’s paintings, including an illustration of a “penny dinner” charity event on Kevin Street (a location where the benevolent Guinness Trust unveiled avant-garde apartment buildings in the 19th century), and her captivating image, A Dublin Urchin, offer a glimpse into the reality of this other realm.
The wider fabric of society was also affected, particularly in the field of labour politics. The growth of the labour movement under James Larkin and James Connolly, culminating in Larkin’s development of the syndicalist Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, set the stage for the 1913 Dublin lockout. Larkin’s pursuit of unionisation for Murphy’s transport workers was a pivotal moment that attracted intellectuals and middle-class reformers. This included figures like George Russell (also known as AE) and the influential writer featured in one of Purser’s best portraits. Despite the workers’ unsuccessful bid for victory, it unveiled the extensive variability in Dublin’s society. This sparked the onset of a turbulent decade leading to the 1916 Rising, the ensuing resistance against British governance, and the 1921 Treaty that led to the Irish Free State.
Living until 1943, Sarah Purser witnessed these tumultuous events and more. In the serene days of Edwardian Dublin, many, including Purser herself, likely envisaged a future where Ireland would achieve Home Rule following the 1906 UK general election when the Liberals were victorious. However, Purser’s interactions with figures like Gonne and Yeats, her allegiance to the suffrage movement, and her unanticipated connection with Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Féin and the future president of Dáil Éireann, hint at her ties to the emerging, more austere Ireland that was developing under the unruffled surface of pre-war Dublin. This nostalgic era is fondly remembered by several memoirists, including Daisy Fingall, George Moore, Oliver St John Gogarty and Orpen.
In the newly formed state, she persisted in wielding her influence, building relationships with members of the Cumann na nGaedheal administration, and playing host to the now popular Tuesday socials at Mespil House. This recreated component of Dublin’s social circle was accompanied by AE’s Sunday congregations, Yeats’ Monday meetings, Gogarty’s Friday soirees, and Jack Yeats’ Saturday afternoon open studios. Echoes of the past pre-revolutionary regime lingered. It was Purser who in 1928 proposed that Charlemont House should be the long-anticipated dwelling for the contemporary artworks her friend Lane desired to donate to Dublin, which were currently held by the London National Gallery. It was unveiled in 1933. The significance of the Hugh Lane Gallery’s location at O’Connell Street’s northern terminus, which Bowen once considered an intimidating unknown territory, is somewhat fitting. Sarah Purser demonstrated her ability to connect varied realms in this situation, as in others.
The exhibit More Power to You – Sarah Purser: A Force for Irish Art, arranged by Logan Sisley, commences at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin, on the 10th of July and continues through the 5th of January 2025. This article for the exhibition’s catalogue was penned by Roy Foster.