THE DEPARTMENT OF Foreign Affairs has spent more than €80,000 on artworks for its embassies, consulates and offices in the past two years, including on four busts of the late SDLP leader John Hume and an oil portrait of the author Edna O’Brien.

Figures released by Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney as part of a Parliamentary Question earlier this year revealed that artworks commissioned by his department have cost €83,705 since the beginning of 2020.

The artworks were purchased on behalf of the State’s diplomatic network, which a Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said were used to promote Ireland’s political and economic interests as well as protecting Irish citizens abroad.

They include:

• €2,570 on six paintings bought as part of an exhibition at a Sligo gallery in 2020;
• €2,389 on a commissioned painting in Chicago;
• €28,500 on a John Hume bust and three replicas;
• €13,192 on a commissioned painting in Washington;
• €2,507 on a commissioned painting in Washington;
• €34,547 on a portrait of Edna O’Brien.

The €2,570 spent on six paintings in January 2020 were for artworks that were originally part of an exhibition featuring 129 artists in Sligo’s Hamilton Gallery.

The exhibition, Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen, was thematically centred on Ireland’s Decade of Commemoration and the artists involved used a major poem by WB Yeats for inspiration.

The paintings varied in prices ranging from €375 to €500 and were purchased “to enhance the catalogue of artworks available to Missions”.

In January of this year, $2,630 (€2,389) was spent by the department on the commission and shipping of an unframed oil painting of Old Mother Jones – a Cork-born immigrant who was a leader for workers’ rights in the US – for the Department’s Chicago consulate.

The artwork was purchased as part of an initiative to acknowledge the contribution of historic women and members of Ireland’s diaspora.

Following this initiative, the Irish embassy in Washington also commissioned a framed painting of Old Mother Jones at a cost of $3,058 (€2,507) in April of this year.

Also in January, the department commissioned sculptor Elizabeth O’Kane to create a bust of John Hume at a cost of €15,000.

The bronze bust was 1.5 times Hume’s life-size dimensions, and was commissioned to form part of a memorial in recognition of former SDLP leader’s impact in Washington.

Three replicas of the bust were commissioned at a cost of €13,500 for display in London, the European Parliament and Department of Foreign Affairs headquarters on St Stephen’s Green in Dublin.

The same month, the Department spent $16,000 (€13,192) commissioning a “digital diptych” by artist Nikkolas Smith to celebrate the ties between Daniel O’Connell and 19th century US abolitionist Fredrick Douglass, as well as John Hume and 20th century US civil rights activist John Lewis.

A spokesperson said: “This is in keeping with the celebrating the diversity of our diaspora and highlighting and deepening connections with other ethnic communities in North America.”

And in May, the Department spent £30,000 (€34,547) on a 50×46 inch oil portrait of novelist Edna O’Brien by artist Colin Davidson for the Irish embassy in London.

A spokesperson said the commission sought to recognise O’Brien’s place “in the canon of Irish literature and her enduring connection with London”.

The spokesperson also told The Journal that the artworks were sought to provide a platform to showcase Irish culture, arts and crafts, building on Ireland’s reputation for artistic excellence.

“For this purpose, the Department purchases paintings, prints, sculptures, pottery, hand fabricated Irish woolen rugs, ceramics and any other items by renowned Irish artists, for display in our Mission premises abroad,” a statement added.