Saint Brendan’s Voyage Linocut Series

In 2009 we were commissioned by St. Brendan’s Church in Tralee to create a series of low relief bronze panels illustrating the incredible Voyage of St. Brendan the Navigator. The panels were inset into the pavement and laid out in a cruciform shape leading up to the entrance of the church.

In order to make these panels we used linocut to make the relief surface. We worked on them in the winter of 2010. This was a particularly bad winter and we were snowed in for 4 weeks at our North Cork studio/cottage. We lit our stove, got ourselves nice and cosy and proceeded to carve the time away, working morning, noon and night on our 13 lino blocks. When they were complete we sent them to the foundry to be cast in bronze.

In the spring of 2020 during the Covid 19 lockdown Liam completed the printing press that he had been building for the last number of years. He made it from upcycled materials with the main frame made using a production table from the Apple computers factory in Cork at an auction in 1999. Over the years this heavy aluminium frame was used for various purposes including a stand for an animation rostrum and an enamelling work station. We commandeered a tool maker friend to make the rollers and a company in Germany to manufacture lead screws along with other items from a parts surplus store in Nebraska.

We wanted to continue in the spirit of reuse and recycle so we decided to take the “St. Brendan- the Navigator” lino blocks out of storage and see what they looked like printed up. We present to you this series…10 years in the making. It not only represents St. Brendan’s voyage but it also our own continuing voyage of discovery with printmaking.