I loved painting this special commission, a thoughtful christening present for a baby born in America to Irish parents.

The baby’s name, Cashel, was chosen with love to honour his Irish heritage and remember his Irish grandmother, Mary Ita, sadly deceased, who was from near the Rock of Cashel. Feargal, his Irish uncle, wanted to give a timeless gift that would, with the passage of years, become a treasured heirloom and as the child grew to man, could be passed in turn to the next generation.

My commission brief was to do a painting of the Rock of Cashel and within the painting to hide a personal message to the much loved and missed mother and grandmother.

In ancient times, ogham stones were often erected to commerorate deceased loved ones. So I added a symbolic ogham stone to the foreground. The ogham writing on the stone’s edge reads “Cashel” and alongside it is a discreet mention of Mary Ita. The two, child and grandmother, forever symbolically linked in the painting. I used old celtic script to write the name “Cashel” on the painting.

I was happy with the finished painting and the feedback from the family was that they loved it.