Falaise to Fethard in the romance of art

The spread of Norman influence from France to Ireland, 1066-1169

This exhibition brings together photographs, paintings, and drawings created between 1885 and 1905 by Irish historian Goddard Orpen and family members he included on his research trips to Normandy, England, Wales and Ireland as part of his research for his four-volume history, Ireland under the Normans.  

The pictorial excursion illustrates their journey from Falaise to Fethard as they followed the spread of Norman influence between 1066-1169. William, Duke of Normandy, was born in Falaise which is the starting point of their imaginary walk with the Normans. 

The images display elements of architecture and landscape to inspire senses of feeling and place. The importance of religion in the medieval period is shown in the photograph of l’Église Notre-Dame in Dives-sur-Mer where William and his knights prayed before setting sail across the channel towards Hastings and in the reliquary shrine of St. Alban in the cathedral in Hertfordshire in England. The river landscape around Ferrycarrig in Ireland where the Normans camped after taking the town of Wexford is idyllic but the bleak and isolated promontory fort at Baginbun on the edge of an ocean conjures feelings of loneliness. 

The metaphorical walk concludes in Fethard in County Wexford illustrated by a small watercolour sketch of the modest castle tower on lands originally granted to the Norman knight Harvey de Montmorency. 

This charming collection of personal interpretations of places and buildings once inhabited by Normans, stimulates debate about the strategies and outcomes of their arrival in Ireland in 1169. 

Were they invaders or trespassers or the invitees of Dermot McMurrough, King of Leinster? Here, the visual rather than the written world helps us form our own interpretation of an historical Irish and European experience.

Curator: Jeremy Hill

Practical information

Free admission 

Partnerships: Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Monksgrange Archives, Discovery Programme (Ireland)

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