A traditional icon, commissioned by Galway Advertiser founder Ronnie O'Gorman who passed away in May, will be unveiled tomorrow night (Friday ) on the feast of St Nicholas, at the Patronal Vespers at St Nicholas Collegiate Church.
The icon, commissioned in memory of Ronnie's late mother Joy Elizabeth Hackett O' Gorman, arrived in the country this week. Mr O'Gorman wanted the icon to be a traditional representation of St Nicholas of Myra, Patron Saint of Galway, robed in his Orthodox episcopal vestments, carrying a closed copy of the Gospel in one hand and blessing the viewer with the other.
An icon is a religious work of art, usually a painting, most commonly found in the Orthodox churches of the East. The subjects can include figures from the bible, most commonly Jesus, Mary and the saints, as well as narrative scenes. Icons are usually painted on wood panels involving special techniques and materials such as egg tempura and gold leaf, and a highly formal and traditional process.
They are used as aids to devotion and prayer, and for the believer act as a window to the transcendent, though the medium of the transfigured representation. Over recent years, icons have become more commonplace in Anglican churches, including the Church of Ireland. In medieval churches such as St Nicholas', they can be a way of restoring an element of the beauty and colour that centuries ago would have been everywhere in the building. Doubtless St Nicholas' in times past would have been resplendent with several colourful representations of its patron saint.
The donor of the new icon
Ronnie's recent death took from the city one of its most colourful characters, described by President Michael D Higgins as “a central part of the arts community, committed to Galway and its region, radically optimistic of the possibilities of life, simply irrepressible, a man who came home to his roots to make an unforgettable contribution”.
Ronnie founded the Galway Advertiser in 1970, and from the outset ensured the paper's support for the arts, especially during the ensuing decade when many of the city's cultural beacons came to life - Druid Theatre, the Galway Arts Festival, Renmore Panto and Music for Galway. Ronnie was an inspirational figure in this surge of artistic activity, and is perhaps best characterised by his son Ben: "Ronnie believed in Galway, and Galway believed in him".
Ronnie had a special interest in religious art, and iconography in particular. Friend and colleague Jeff O'Connell recalls a trip the pair made to the sixth century St Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai desert. There they saw some of the oldest icons in the world, kindling Ronnie's deep interest in the icon tradition of the Orthodox Church.
When in recent years, Ronnie found his spiritual home in St Nicholas' and became a regular attender at the Sunday Eucharist, he explored the possibility with Provost Lynda Peilow of providing an icon of its patron saint, to adorn the church interior, return some of the medieval colour that it would have had in centuries past, and bring a focus for prayer and spiritual encounter.
Many discussions were had about the style and content of the icon, and it was decided to create a triptych - a three-panel piece at the centre of which is an image of the saint himself, and on the side panels four familiar "wonderworker" scenes from his life. The approximate size of the icon is 80 cm high and 120 cm wide (with the doors open ).
The artist
The new icon has been commissioned from Peter Murphy, a UK-based iconographer and close friend of Ronnie, whose work can be found in many churches, cathedrals and museums, with notable installations at Tewkesbury Abbey and Hereford Cathedral. Peter uses traditional techniques from medieval religious painting, including egg tempura paint and gold leaf.
He is chief tutor at St Peter's Centre for Sacred Art in Canterbury, and visiting tutor in Byzantine iconography and Early Italian painting and gilding techniques for the Edward James Foundation at West Dean College in Sussex.
Speaking to the Advertiser, Mr Murphy described how the idea for the icon originated.
"The icon of St Nicholas was first proposed by Ronnie to myself on a visit to Venice in May 2023. We had discussed doing something the previous year when in Venice but by May 2023 Ronnie seems to have made up his mind about exactly what he wanted.
"We had been visiting the Byzantine sites around Venice and Ronnie was particularly taken and very much impressed by the late Byzantine icons in the Cretan style that we saw in the Church and adjacent Museum of icons at St George of the Greeks, the Orthodox Church in Venice.
"Ronnie wanted to commission an icon of St Nicholas in the traditional Byzantine style in memory of his mother, Joy Elizabeth Hackett O'Gorman, for whom there is a dedication inscription on the back of the central panel.
"In addition, Ronnie also wanted representations of four miracles associated with the saint. After some discussion, it was decided that these scenes should be painted, two on each side, on the closing wings of a triptych."
He said that Ronnie was particularly concerned that the miracle scenes should reflect the saint's intercession for and response to the prayers of disparate elements of society, in order to represent symbolically, all the people of Galway.
"With this in mind, we explored the images of traditional miracle scenes associated with the saint and how they had been depicted in past icons. Three of the scenes occur regularly in hagiographical icons of the Eastern Church depicting St Nicholas and his miracles.
The scenes are St Nicholas rescuing and interceding to save the lives of four military officers wrongly condemned to death, St Nicholas saving sailors from a storm at sea, which was felt to be particularly pertinent, given the association of Galway with the sea and seafaring; the third scene is the classic, 'Santa Claus' story, of the saint giving a gift of Church plate melted down into gold balls, dropped anonymously through the window of a house, to answer the prayers of a despairing, impoverished father of three sisters, in order to save them from a life of penury and possible prostitution; the fourth scene however proved more difficult, the story of three young boys murdered by a butcher and hidden in a pickle barrel, then miraculously brought back to life by the prayers of the saint, is a much loved Western depiction of St Nicholas, but it doesn't occur in traditional Byzantine iconography. Therefore, this scene had to be re-interpreted and depicted in a traditional Byzantine iconographic manner, in order to fit with the other scenes stylistically.
The icon is painted in egg tempera in the traditional Byzantine, 'Proplasmos' style, whereby the darker local tones of all the figures, buildings, landscape etc, are painted in dark neutral colours, the modelling is then done with successive layers of highlighting, as the iconographer literally pulls the light of the forms out of the darkness and chaos of the first layers of mineral pigments.
The backgrounds and halos of the figures are gilded using almost pure gold leaf in the ancient, 'water gilding' technique, where the gold is laid over a red clay base and then polished with an agate burnisher.
The halo of the St Nicholas figure has a pattern tooled and stamped into the gold leaf so it will catch the light. Gold is not used purely for its attractiveness and decorative qualities in icons, in Byzantine Art, gold represents light, not natural light but the uncreated light of God, as witnessed by the disciples at the moment of the Transfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor.
The congregation at tomorrow's event at 8pm will be joined by the choir and clergy of Galway Cathedral (also dedicated to St Nicholas! ).
Everyone is welcome to attend the unveiling to enter the church to pray and be able to come and light a candle at the new icon. They just need to mention at the door that this is their intention. Although tourists now pay to visit the church (providing much-needed income ), entrance is still free for those coming to pray and light a candle.
