Owen Walsh, Artist: A Tale of Talent and Self-Sabotage

Owen Walsh, Artist tells the fascinating story of a talented but troubled Irish artist. Written by his son Eoghan, the book uses a fictitious contemporary narrator to recount Owen’s eventful life and times. Despite enormous ability and notable artistic achievements, Walsh failed to achieve personal or professional success. Today he is a footnote in Irish art history rather than a main player that his talent warranted.

How did such potential fail to be realised? Was it due to his personality and temperament? Did the Irish art establishment conspire against him? Or was he simply too fiercely independent to get along with the powers that be?

Using imagined dialogue and letters, weaved into the real occurrences of an action-packed life, this book tells Owen’s story in engaging prose. A scholarship to the National College of Art; travels in Europe and his doomed youthful marriage; his estrangement from family; the dramatic death of his mother; pursuing art at the expense of all other responsibilities; rejection of and by the art hierarchy; and his difficult final years living alone in his Baggot Street studio.

‘A wonderful book, a deeply felt testimony to a unique talent, illuminating and unflinching, writing that is close to the bone and touching the heart.’ – Frank McGuinness, poet and playwright

‘. . . a rallying call to recognise an important and difficult talent, a love letter to art, women, life, booze and place. But mostly, it is a love letter from a son to a father. And like the art, it is joyful.’ – Sonya Lennon, broadcaster and author

‘This book brilliantly evokes a bohemian Dublin that is gone . . . a Dublin of much genius but no shortage of self-sabotage. A fine evocation of those times.’ – Donal Fannon, historian, author and broadcaster

About the Author

Eoghan O’Mara Walsh is the CEO of the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation. A frequent contributor to The Irish Times, the Irish Examiner, the Business Post and the Sunday Independent, as well a regular media performer on radio and TV, Eoghan lives in Dublin with his wife and two daughters.