IRELAND DOESN’T HAVE too many sacred cows these days – but there will be at least one shrine to them this week.

Kelly Hood’s exhibition in the Mill Theatre in Dublin, beginnning this Saturday, features a collection of black-and-white cow portraits. Dingle native Hood numbers celebrities Terry Wogan, Tommy Tiernan and members of the Cranberries among fans of her hyper-realistic paintings.

Hood says that she spent summers as a child on her grandmother’s farm, helping to milk Daisy the cow and that she inspired by the bovine locals of west Kerry. She says:

I eat them, I wear them and I paint them… I owe them something, don’t I?

I’m regularly asked, ‘Why cows?’ and it’s probably because the cow is a universally-loved animal. The cow represents different things to different people all around the world. She’s sacred, she’s historical, she connects us to our past; but the common feeling is one of affection. She simply makes everyone smile.