Amongst the portraits displayed on our first floor is this singular work by Eileen Healy – shown here in a detail. The artist depicts a seated Cónal Creedon – with hands clasped and wearing a long coat (and sheriff’s badge!) – seemingly deep in thought, perhaps plotting out the germ of a new story. “I love the process of writing,” the playwright and novelist notes, “sitting down and just enjoying these people I’ve created. When you get rid of it and publish it, that’s the end of it.”

Author of 1990s RTÉ radio drama Under the Goldie Fish, Creedon has also written two novels, Passion Play (1999) and Begotten Not Made (2018), and made several documentaries, including The Burning of Cork (2005). This portrait serves as the cover image for his Second City Trilogy. He is currently adjunct professor in creative writing at the Department of English, University College Cork.

A member of Backwater Artists Group, Eileen Healy is a figurative artist: “I am attracted to the immediacy and freshness of recreating in my own language what is in front of me.” Working from life, she creates direct, honest, and strong portraits of people who sit in her studio. She also teaches life drawing at CIT Crawford College of Art & Design.

Portrait of Cónal Creedon (2007) byEileen Healy is displayed on our Main Landing (Floor 1).