Heritage from Home - National Drawing day

Saturday the 16th May is National Drawing day which brings to mind the importance of illustrations, drawings and paintings of our heritage sites that have survived through the ages. In the 18th century the fashion for drawing antiquities was exemplified by Gabriel Beranger whose paintings of his Rambles thro’ the County of Dublin in 1770s beautifully recorded now long gone castles and monuments in Fingal. George Victor du Noyer (1817-1869) who as a teenager was apprenticed to the artist and archaeologist George Petrie, head of the Topographical Department of the Ordnance Survey, painted or drew over 5000 images of landscapes, buildings and coastlines. He recorded the folding rocks of Drumanagh, Ireland’s Eye and Portrane’s Tower bay https://dcenr.maps.arcgis.com There is  an online database of drawings and antiquarian photographs including Du Noyer drawings of the windows in Swords Castle and the round tower and church in the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland collections https://rsai.locloudhosting.net/ The work of those who painted the fields, boats and skies of Fingal, from Nathaniel Hone to Harry Kernoff can be seen in the online collection of the National Gallery of Ireland