THE VERY EARLY DAYS

"Early in 1982 my friend Phelim Connolly rang me. He was very excited . Rapidly , he told me about a mostly disused building on Eustace Street that he had heard about and managed to rent from CIE This was long before anything else was much happening in the area, let alone the concept of "Temple Bar". I had never heard of Eustace St but immediately jumped at the chance when Phelim asked me if I was interested in becoming joint lease holder with him.

That phonecall marked the beginning of rewiring the place for electricity, fixing plumbing, scraping off decades of wallpaper (and inches of pigeon shit ) and repairing exhausted and optimistic into the quiet local" the Norseman"! Eventually the studios were ready and we started the more daunting business of trying to become full-time artists . I think Eustace St played a nourishing role for our seedling careers . It provided a focus for the necessary impetus for us in the crucial and most difficult years immediately after leaving Art College.

The bitter cold, permanent dampness and poor light in my attic space eventually made me consider leaving, but I fondly remember the excitement of the early days and the incredible - albeit bemused - patience of Max and Jim from Mood Music on the ground floor , as they watched their hallway fill up with bicycles, canvasses, trees (!) and other items deemed to be essential to the lives of young artists .

Now that building is poised to enter a new era of refurbishment and comfort for the future artists , I am both delighted and slightly sad . When I remember the constant battle against the leaking roof and the permanently blocked sink, I am glad for those artists who will be able to spend more time worrying about their work. But I also think they will miss the excitement about their future and control over their own space that Phelim and I felt when we first walked up the stairs under the beautiful pitched glass roof on the top landing . Phelim said it was like a Cathedral. I am not religious but I see what he meant."

Una Sealy

"Thanks for the invite to your celebration. My memories of early days in 16 Eustace Street are vivid. Perhaps moving out of Dublin in 1985 puts a sharper edge on my recall. As we all know the south quays west of the metal bridge, was a ghost town in 1981. The house had the memory of the early 1970's with Donny Osmonde posters still on the wall. After ten years of neglect, generations of dead pigeons lay in desiccated heaps up in the roof. Having left NCAD, I was walking around with nowhere to paint and by chance moved into the house in September 1982. I remember hanging a door by candle light and feeling the presence of something eerily familiar. Such things as rope haulage marks on the banisters gave clues to the imagination in the dark. One of us was living there despite ClE's lease and I slept there quite often. Strange to say but we never drunk in the Norseman much. It was a strange mix of GAA fans, Russian spies and Special Branch men who also watched the Arab students league opposite. The orientation then was Grafton St. Tobin's, Sheehan's etc.. Very claustrophobic stuff. Waking up on a Sunday morning to seagulls on the Uffey and the faint sound of high tide water lapping and only the squeak of buses breaking the silence is a fond memory. Dubhlinn was real.

Eamonn always had a coal fire and many philosophical meanderings flowed forth on the hard reality of trying to keep working and keep eating drinking etc. . I remember Rory O'Byrne came up one day from the art college and said "Hey Johnny they're teaching painting up there now; how to mix colours and even how to prime a canvas 1" That was when the London show of 1981 "A new Spirit in Painting" allowed Dublin to make manure after London urinated. One day in 1984, a fine building fell into the street. We were waiting for ClE to start knocking down to build their centre city garage. It was a bad omen but strangely very soon Haughey seemed to have discovered the area or was it Anthony Cronin? I left after my abstract work went flat and have been teaching our country cousins ever since. My studio now, is in the open air whenever I get the chance.

For all of us Una Sealy, Eamon Coleman, Jim Gannon and Chris Maguire, 16 Eustace St. was a good place to work. For the opportunity of being there in the quiet days I am eternally grateful . I hope the house still can offer artists working spaces at low rents. If not the yuppie fication of the south quays shall ensue without exception. Good luck to you all in the new times ahead. " Johnny Hughes.

James was working and living in the downstairs front room and John Hughes was in the back room. James built the shelves and we put in a cooker. We would cook a stew, James used to cook a great rabbit stew and when we had finished working we would have a big feed and go out for a few pints in the NORSEMAN. The NORSEMAN became our second home. We hung our work and seemed to spend more time there than was good for us. I remember when the police were watching the NORSEMAN because someone was passing our information to the Russians

Pat Moran moved in, in 1986 and by that time the studios were running well - I was mother collecting the rent and paying the ESB - we had good FUN and long may this building house painters." Eamon Coleman

Got studio through Eamon Colman I had studio next to door opening onto the roof. Met pat Moran and Dimitri Broe through the studios. Started going to life classes at Trinity Collage (rere) Pat Moran organized a three person show which was to be one of my first exhibitions. ,Pat Moran Dimitri Broe and myself had a show in the Peacock Theatre Foyer I worked in the studio for about 1 1/2 years and frequently drew and painted from the rooftops. It was one of my main inspirations, those rooftops and left its mark on all of us who worked there. There is no single incident that sticks out in my mind except from the camaraderie that grew between Pat, Dimitri, Eamon and myself in those formative years. Oisin

It was Oisin that invited me to share his studio at the top of No.16 I had been there before to see his paintings and I knew it was magic. My memories are of a table out on the flat roof and Eamon. Pat, Dimitri and Oisin sitting around it having dinner- it was bohemian artist living at its best. Oisin collected wood from skips to lightin his foreplace- a tradition I continued. We only shared the studio for a month. Across from me was a girl making brooches I think. Pat kept the plants fresh and green and minded us all. Dimitre soon left to go to Germany and Eamon to India and Edmond and Athony arrived and a sociable and friendly atmosphere grew up amongst us. Amongst the highlights I remember John Hurt at our opening; poetry readings and life classes. For me the atmosphere is so supportive compared to the anonymity of Temple bar. I feel that I have grown here” Dympha Hayden

"For me Eustace Street goes with Pat. This place is where I got to know him best. The colours of his skies, his clouds, the colours in his studio. that Turquoise blue, his own blue . I saw it first in Gardner St. his painting from the window was a different vision of the Gardner St that I knew. When you went out with him for a drink you were always meeting people. He had so many friends and seemed to know everyone. All kinds of people. he could get on with anyone. He went down to Cork for a change of scene. I missed him and wished he 'd come back. He was only going for a few months but he kept extending and extending his time there. I know he was really happy there and his work was going well. He started teaching in Portlaoise prison over a year ago and he was very popular there. He came back to the Studio after Christmas . One of the first things that he did was prune and re-pot the plants. It took a whole day. He really cared about this place. It was good to have him back and the Studio began to feel its old self again."

"I have known Pat for many years and feel it's appropriate to say a few words about someone whom I feel is very much associated with studio 16, who's room I am now working in and can never fail to forget it. Pat. I needn't say is very much missed here and his absence makes me feel it 's a sure sign of changing times . Pat was known as mother because basically he kept an eye on the domestic affairs of the studio and he had a bit of tongue and cheek that allowed him e facility to connect with everyone. Our tunes didn't always synchronise and when I think of Pat . it is difficult for me not to recognise the good days and the frustrating ones and how they go hand in hand in a true encounter of friendship . His good humoured nature never failed to light up his eyebrows, and I know I speak for many people when I say that Pat was generous with his time for people and he certainly got around."

"Pat was the caring one in our studio - for me, he was identified with studio 16. It was he who regulated , who came to work in the house . and he was very protective of the fact that the studios should be properly used. He cared for the plants '. in the luxuriant greenery under the skylight and gently pressured us all into taking responsibility for keeping the kitchen clean. He was the one who made sure that we turned the lights off and the one who negotiated in disputes between artists. He was the heart and the centre of the studio and it is an inexpressible sadness that he is lost to us. But somehow his presence lingers here in a warm and positive way." Pat Moran (by AL, EL, and DH)

After returning home in '87 from an exhilarating three years tripping in high altitudes, I came up to Dublin in search of space but of a different kind to what I had gotten used to. I recall the horror I felt then of finding a studio that didn't feel like a prison cubicle where one voluntarily committed oneself to being a caged in specimen . No doubt I had been spoiled from living in the wide open landscape of the Himalayas, but nonetheless I couldn' t entertain the thought of painting myself into a boxed partition. At the time, I frequently met with Pat Moran and it was Pat who introduced me to Studio 16. I liked it immediately and thought the possibilities of the imagination would not be stifled here. I had shared a studio with Pat before in Gardner St in '83, so it was great to find myself in familiar company again. I moved in to the top room and outside my door Pat had his Garden of delights, nourished under the glass sky roof, while Dymphna had her own jungle in the room opposite. The kitchen come chit-chat area is where much of the drama of Studio 16 took place, all airs and graces and much a-doo were staged here. It wasn 't long before Anthony joined us a added his own peculiar quirk to the drama of events, all of which led to a most eventful opening . "Enter John Hurt" - what to say except that we were very much taken by surprise that he went to the trouble of opening our show and it was greatly appreciated. I have been working here now for almost five years and feel that it has been- of great value to me as it has been to numerous painters before me . Despite all the ups and downs, and still not having managed the installation of an elevator, we have applied our talents to such things as relieving the backlog in the plumbing works and doing a major patchwork job on the roof top. All in all it has been a delight to dabble in the pallet of ones imagination and though much is about to change as times will do, I think it is important to appreciate what has gone before." Edmond Leahy

"After travelling in Spain for 3 months I was working in London for a friend decorating a model agency's office in Covent Garden. When it was finished I was wondering what to do. While I was deliberating I got a call from Edmond saying Pat was .going to the Tyrone Guthrie Centre for 2 months and wanted to offer me his studio in Eustace St. I decided to come back to Dublin. When I came into Pat's Studio it looked like he had just rushed out. He had left a note saying "Ant, Sorry about the mess, see you soon: When he came back I knew I didn't want to leave. I moved into the studio across the hall which was Dimitri's old studio and it took me about a week to pull down the platform he had built for his bed. For the first time in ages I felt settled amongst Familiar friends and things. Pat Edmond and I

had all worked together in a studio in Gardner St in the early '80's. I kept finding things I had left behind in Gardner St. in Pat's studio. Pat was mother and he looked after everything. The rent. esb. the plants, settled disputes. He would cook us dinner and call out when it was ready. It became a regular event to take turns in cooking, and our meals became more and more ambitious. Then we would paint for a while and then down to the Norseman for the last pint.

Edmond painted through the night. Dymphna has people in her studio that banged the floor and gave great shouts, Tom had a pet seagull. We never locked our doors, when you lost something you went looking for it. When the roof leaked we patched it up. The roof was out of order every three weeks till someone was brave enough to tackle it. It's going fine now thanks to Pat's last job.

The studio has always been run in an informal way. No-one has been in charge. It has kind of grown to one person to another. We have watched things change here. The Artists in this area have come together . We have been suspicious and we have begun to trust Temple Bar properties and their commitment. Right now we are waiting to see what will happen next.' Anthony Lyttle

"In 1986 with no studio to work in I got an offer of a studio space in No 16. I had a show coming up and needed the space for just three months . So I sublet the floor there from a brooch maker who sublet from Eamon Coleman . I never met anyone in the building just came and worked and went. In 1988 I moved into No 18 with Vincent Sheridan as Joint Caret taker . We had three floors between us and each was like and airplane hanger . With its massive Georgian windows and grand stairway it was like heaven. ah gone are the days . We got notice to quit from CIE in 1990 but the legal handover to T'BP did not take place until '92 . Vincent went to Vancouver in August '92 . I got two days notice to move out. Amid great drama it was finally agreed between T'BP, myself and No 16 that I could move into a vacant studio on the top, at rear. I passed all my worldly goods out the back Window across to Anthony Lyttle on the catwalk that run s across from No 17 to Temple Lane and thus saved hours of work? All of the people from No 16 helped me to shift gear and made me feel very welcome. Apart from the big reduction in space and the mould and dripping water I have been happy enough so far , I look forward to working here in the future and although the days of Russian spies and the 'Branch have long since disappeared I think in a different way No 16 and Temple 'Bar itself have still a great appeal." Stephen Lawlor

"I came to work In this studio I n November 1991 , I had initially made the acquaintance of Anthony at the Black Church Print Studio, where l worked for three consecutIve summers. The closure of the print studio In the Coombe due to arson, prompted my search for a workspace to screenprint and brought me to Eustace Street, Studio16 has a co-operatIve and friendly atmosphere, also a sense of community among Its members: I like that. Linda S, Condon

Acknowledgments from Studio 16 Vivian , thank you for your help and hard work in casting Pat's Bird. In a special way, Bridget has been associated with Studio 16, as she first volunteered to help us when we were organising the exhibition in 1991. She came to us through her friendship with Pat and stayed to support us in many ways from staining the stairs backwards to managing uswith a combination of twinkle and firmness. Thank you Bridget