The funeral takes place today of the creator of the famed St Brendan sculpture in Fenit.
Tighe O’Donoghue/Ross created the 12-feet tall bronze statue of the monastic saint which stands at Great Samphire Rock in Fenit Harbour.
The 81-year-old New Yorker moved to Ireland in 1986 and settled in Glenflesk.
His work is in the permanent collections of prestigious institutions including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and in the Smithsonian in Washington DC.
New York-born Tighe O’Donoghue/Ross was an internationally renowned sculptor, painter, printmaker and engraver whose work has left a colossal imprint on this county’s landscape.
In addition to his statue of St Brendan the Navigator in Fenit, O’Donoghue/Ross also created the renowned Cappal Mór sculpture on the N22 Kerry-Cork road at Clonkeen.
This shows a rearing Celtic war horse with a unicorn-horn helmet reflecting O’Donoghue/Ross’s passion for Irish history and legend.
He was born Thomas Martin O’Donohue in Brooklyn and always felt a strong connection to his Irish heritage.
He was the hereditary chief of the O’Donoghues of Ross; DNA had established he was descended from The O’Donoghue Mór, Princes of Lough Léine.
The 81-year-old’s funeral mass will take place in St Mary’s Cathedral, Killarney this morning at 10.30am – here too he made his presence felt as the East Chapel features his hand-painted glass panels for windows, dedicated to his ancestors and with the theme dawn and dusk.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%22St._Brendan_of_the_Gael%22,_Fenit,_Co_Kerry_by_Tigue_O%27Donoghue.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Capall_Mor.jpg
