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Hellelil and Hildebrand, The Meeting on the Turret Stairs by Frederic William Burton National Gallery of Ireland
In the frame
Ireland's Favourite Painting is announced... and it's a romantic one
Hellelil and Hildebrand, The Meeting on the Turret Stairs by Frederic William Burton is named Ireland’s favourite painting in RTÉ show of Irish gallery masterpieces.
THE FAVOURITE OF old Irish romantics everywhere, The Meeting on the Turret Stairs, has been named Ireland’s favourite painting.
A public vote promoted by RTÉ’s competition to find the nation’s favourite painting over the past five weeks found that the Frederic William Burton piece, which hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland, polled most preferences. One in five of those who voted (22 per cent) went for the romantic 19th century depiction of a young soldier stealing an illicit kiss from his beloved as they pass on a turret stair. Burton was from Corofin, Co Clare.
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Speaking on RTÉ’s arts programme The Works last night, President Michael D Higgins said he thought the painting to be “a very considerable and beautiful painting”. He said:
I remember the editorial in the Irish Independent of the day, written by William Martin Murphy, who said that the (National) gallery would never be a jot of value to the common people of Dublin. And thankfully he was wrong. Art is about the foundations of citizenship and creativity and what we all own together and the celebration that should be available to every citizen now and into the future.
The National Gallery said that it had recorded increased visitor figures since the competition began with footfall up by about 20,000 visitors on the same period in 2011. Sales of merchandise relating to all the shortlisted paintings had “doubled” and sales of merchandise relating to the winning painting had increased fourfold on the same period in 2011.
Sharon Corr, who had been one of the celebrity spokespersons on the RTÉ campaign – and who had picked the Meeting on the Turret Stairs as her favourite painting – had recalled how she had seen it on her first date with her now husband Gavin Bonnar. She said:
We’d literally just met the night before in the Gaiety at some salsa club and we were walking up Baggot Street the next day and he said where will we go and I said let’s go to the National Gallery because I’d never been there before. We did and it was so special and we’ve brought our kids back as well, like an anniversary. I’m terribly romantic, I really am a sucker for it all.
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Don’t be blaming it on the weather. People are just lazy and then they complain when things aren’t going great for them. You’ve no right to complain if you have not voted.
@Stephen Mc Elligott: that’s not true. If there is no party or candidates with whom you agree policy when why would you vote for someone you disagree with and don’t want to in government?
@Stephen Mc Elligott: nothing at all to do with the thousands of registered voters who have been chased abroad to find work and affordable accommodation and the lack of notice for them to organise to be home to vote
@Perlum Sprite: and hopefully it’s a trend that will continue with regards to future elections and so on! Your vote makes a difference.. Young, old everything in between.
@Sean: and if you’re out of the country or otherwise unable to get to your polling station? Happened to me once. My parents were in Spain, and because my polling station was still my home place, I had no way of getting there without them giving me a lift. Had to miss out on a vote.
I’m from a village with no transport links, and I don’t drive myself.
@Mirabelle Stonegate: I suppose you get a small fine – he wasn’t suggesting prison. Not entirely fair to a few people like yourself, but a benefit to society in general.
@Sean: Could not disagree with you more. Mandatory voting is an invasion of a person’s civil liberties. People choose not to vote for a variety of reasons and making it compulsory is a step too far.
@Valentine Healy-Rae-Nua: taxi? In a village? In Ireland? Bahahaha! You’ve obviously never been in rural Ireland. Most towns don’t have taxis, never mind villages. And cycle? Most drivers drive in such a way that it’s deadly dangerous to cycle. As for villages without poling stations, my own village doesn’t have one. I can think of several more.
Nearly 40% of the electorate decided not to vote, most couldn’t be bothered. They should keep their mouth shut on how the country is run until the next election.
@Seán Dillon: I don’t vote and I’ll still complain. I might vote next time if shinners do a good job but I just can’t support any party that has actually been in power and was a bit iffy about SF, I live close to the border and it’s like a cult here.
@tenlover: lots of people say SF will destroy the economy, and will be bad for business.
FF are the ones who destroyed the economy, FG are the ones who step in to clean up the mess after them every 20 years, but then they allow business to rape and pillage.
I’m self employed 25 years, since I was 17 or 18. I don’t fear SF in government. What can they do that’s worse than FF?
Yeah, they may be clueless and inexperienced and have no hope of implementing their manifesto and a junior coalition party – but all I want is health and housing addressed. If they do that, I’ll be happy.
@Perlum Sprite: think I speak for the middle class of our country when I say, we won’t be around to see what kind of job they do. Worrying times for people who make a bit
@tenlover: if ever I’ve seen somebody talk out of there ar**ho** it’s you, if you’ve actually been following, the Sinn Fein vote has been across the board.
You seem to not realise Irish people in general are very patriotic, in that they want the country as a whole to do well, housing and health is falling to pieces. FG had 4 years and another 4 with FF backing them up and they couldn’t sort it whatsoever. What’s left to try? Sinn Fein, good luck to them I hope they succeed as I’m a patriot too.
@Perlum Sprite: do you remember the credit crunch ??? I distinctly remember that starting in the USA… then spilling over to Germany who a lot European countries like Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain and even Italy owed a lot of money to German banks that stopped lending to other banks. Fianna Fail had nothing to do with it. I wish people would educate themselves on this and stop buying into that rubbish…
@Paul O’Sullivan: also was watching Fox news about the election one of their analysts said it would be a good time for Bond holders to cash in their bonds. Which will result negatively on Ireland… so even though we vote for our governments, forgein investors can still put this country down the toilet when they want to.
@Paul O’Sullivan: They did, they concentrated too much of the economy into the construction sector.
Easy money for them, stamp duty etc. Bad planning, corruption, brown envelopes etc. It’s all been shown to be true.
We all know there were huge external factors as you’ve outlined but FF policy ballooned it to destroy our economy.
You don’t run an economy by buying and selling houses to each other, fact. We borrowed from our children’s future.
@Paul O’Sullivan: the collapse was so severe here because the was no plan in place to deal with it and we were so heavily reliant on construction. That was the fault of FF.
@Derek Lyster: You are partial right. But it is very hard to plan for a global
crash so severe that it is up there with the great depression of 1929.
This was many years in the making and we are still feeling the effects of it.
My bet is that any party that had been in power at that time would have made the exact same mistakes that FF did.
Very noble of Leo. Calling an election so people would be off coz it’s a weekend. Even though he forgot about those who work weekends, nights and unsocial hours to keep vital public services going and private sector workers in enterprises who also work all hours. He’d be only too delighted if the nurses and others are tied up at work. He had banked on the youth (off from college) to come out and vote for him and his cronies. That didn’t pan out so well for him. Slán libh FG.
@Clem J Ó Díomasaigh: in fairness, for years people have been saying how elections should be held at weekends as it would be more convenient. Unfortunately, no matter what day of the week is chosen it won’t suit everyone. Also, one test does not an experiment make, in this case the weather may have been an issue. We should also examine alternative methods of voting
@Clem J Ó Díomasaigh: 7am till 10pm. Even the saintly nurses can find 20 minutes in there to vote. Those who didn’t vote, close to 40%, are just disengaged, lazy, good-for-nothings who have no appreciation of the sacrifices made to give them the right AND DUTY to vote. No excuses.
@Seaniecp: Any excuse to have a cut at the current government by the sounds of it. People who were determined to vote to repeal the 8th travelled from all over the world to make sure they voted. Apparently some people are unwilling to make time for this election thought because it’s easier to whinge online
A lot of people are registered but they are working abroad like how many Irish are in Australia atm that are registered to vote I k ow it’s not 40% of the electrolate but it could be as high as 10 %… we have a very bad system in Ireland for voter registration.
Some people are even on it twice. I.e having moved to different locations. It needs to e over hauled.
I moved house recently and received 3 polling cards to my house for last residents, one of whom moved out 6 years ago. My daughter received 2 polling cards, one in her old student house in Dublin and one in my previous home, she only voted once BTW, but her other vote will have gone down on the record as a “did not vote”, I know loads more cases of this. The electoral register is a joke and needs to be completely overhauled, surely they could use PPSN as a record for register, so if you re-register you automatically get removed from your previous address. PPSN used by HSE for many of their claiming schemes such as flu immunisations, so don’t see a GDPR issue.
63% turnout . 22% for each of the main parties
So whichever group form a government will represent just 14% of those eligible to vote. Mandatory voting seems desirable.
@Sean Ryan: so how do you get someone with dementia to vote… also a person has a right to spoil a vote… so they can just go down and defaced it or not mark anything… think about that why it’s not mandatory..
@Paul O’Sullivan: A spoiled vote is a vote. You get fined if you don’t go to the polling booth, what you do with the ballot paper is up to you. That’s why its called a secret ballot.
@Laughable: I wonder what the breakdown is by age? Old people tend to get up very early, and not need as much sleep in general. They’re probably the most likely people to head out on a Saturday as soon as anything is open. I’d say they all voted early before the storm. It’ll be interesting to see the turnout sorted by age group.
We need compulsory voting but we’ll never get is because none of the major parties want it. It scares the bejasus out of them. If the 38% who don’t vote were forced to vote the result would be No Safe Seats, this is why the big parties don’t want it, the current system suits them, they all get a turn iin government. Sad.
Weather was fine Saturday morning and anybody with no time to vote should have gotten up 20 minutes earlier. If the election was on a weekday students would have moaned about being in college and not being able to go home to vote.
Well it may be down to people not being in the country or perhaps part of it is due to more people living on the streets than were the last time we went to the polls for a general election. If they don’t have a home they don’t have a constituency to vote in and they can’t vote
I think thy should try vote by mobile phone since most people spend most time of day on their mobile. I think it was introduced years ago in one of baltic states worked and still works. Think about it TDs
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