10/04/2024
**Sr Concepta Lynch - business woman, musician and artist**
*Born Lily Lynch in 1874, the only surviving child of Thomas Joseph Lynch, known as the "King of revival art"
*She trained and worked under her father in his studio at 31 Grafton Street and showed great talent from an early age. Her father trusted her artistic skills to the point he would allow her to finish and sign his work when he himself was busy on a new commission.
*At the age of 12 her father died of tuberculosis, her mother passed two years later and the orphaned Lily became a boarder student in the Dominican school in Dún Laoghaire. With the help of her paternal aunts she kept the business going and over the years she would prove herself to be an astute business woman. However, when the business caught fire some years later, she made the decision not to rebuild.
*After the fire in Grafton St Lily decided to join the enclosed order of Dominican nuns in the convent where she spent her school days. In July 1896 she took the name Sr. Concepta.
This might seem an unusual move for a woman who had the means to be independent at this point in history but she obviously knew her own mind.
*Many happy years were spent as an Art and music teacher in the convent run school and she comes across as being a favourite of many of her students. A multitalented woman, her crowning achievement comes in the form of the oratory still remaining near the site where this convent once stood.
*The building itself was funded by charitable donations from the locals. It was built in remembrance for the end of WWI and in memory of the men from Dún Laoghaire / Ráthdown who fought in the Great War.
(This was not a popular opinion at the time in post Easter Rising Ireland. A lot of Irish men who fought were not classed as heroes, instead a lot were viewed with contempt for fighting what was now seen as Britain's war. Most of the men from the area fought in the 1st Battalion Irish guards. When they were stationed in the town of Poperinge, on the French border, there was a chapel there in which the men regularly prayed to the statue of the Sacred Heart for solace and protection. There is one story that suggests the same statue is now in Sr. Concepta's oratury.)
*The oratory was built in the style of early Irish churches. It measures 5.8m x 3.6m and was originally very plain inside when complete.
*When Sr Concepta's Cousin, Shaun Glenville and his wife Dorothy Ward (both with careers in theatre) visited, he commented that it was "like a stable in Connemara". Knowing her talent as an artist he suggested she paint it and he would help fund it with charity performances.
*In 1920 work began in the oratury, using household paint that was mixed to Sr Concepta's specifications. Since it was an enclosed order she could not leave the convent and so the orders were done via the lay teachers or students.
*For 16 years Sr Concepta worked by the light of oil lamps and using lead based paint. Using painter’s ladders and planks of wood she painted the higher parts of the walls. At times she laid her back (similar to Michelangelo painting the Sistine chapel) to paint the ceiling.
*In a day that started at 5:30am she spent all the spare time she had making and cutting out stencils and painting this beautiful space. To her mind it was a way of showing her devotion and her time for peaceful contemplation.
*After years of working in this environment she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she lived for a further 11 years after the diagnosis , but always the work continued. As she got weaker her students or fellow nuns would hold her hand up as she painted. In 1936 she became so weak that one of her fellow nuns had to remove the brush from her hand and put her to bed.
Sr Concepta Lynch died in April 1939 at the age of 65 leaving her beloved oratury unfinished. Out of respect for Sr Concepta’s devotion and talent, the oratory remains as she left it.
**The pictures below are ones I took today on my visit and I have added some notes in the comments below each.
To book tickets go to: https://webcloudone.com/oratory
