Sir, – I was fascinated by Brian Maye’s excellent Irishman’s Diary piece on travel writer, explorer and artist Isaac Weld (March 4th). As the article acknowledged, Weld was an enormously influential figure in the RDS in the mid-19th century and made a significant contribution to the advancement of knowledge in Ireland generally. His portrait by Martin Cregan – referenced in Brian Maye’s article – was described by Anne Crookshank and the Knight of Glin in their history of Irish painters as “Cregan at his competent best’”.
Weld and Cregan had parallel institutional careers for a time as Weld was guiding the fortunes of the RDS while Cregan was president of the Royal Hibernian Academy (of which he was a founder member) at crucial stages of their development and their organisations collaborated on mounting the art exhibits at the Great Dublin Exhibition of 1853. Cregan attended Weld’s funeral in 1856 at a time when he was fighting a losing battle against an attempt to oust him from the chair in the RHA.
His background was rather different to that of Weld, as he rose from rags to riches but apparently ended his days in poverty.
For more on Cregan, his origins and his travails, I would direct you to an article on him in the 2024 issue of the Meath history journal Ríocht na Midhe, due to be launched on March 27th in the County Library, Navan. – Yours, etc,
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FRANK COGAN,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.