Donal O'Murchadha

Donal O’Murchadha (or Domhnall Ó Murchadha) was an Irish sculptor from Cork. Born as Daniel Joseph Murphy, he adopted the Irish version of his name in the 1940s. He studied at the Crawford School of Art in Cork and from 1939 at the National College of Art in Dublin. In 1943 he received a scholarship that enabled him to continue his studies in Firenze. Together with other art students he designed the costumes for the film Henry V by director Sir Laurence Olivier in 1943.

O’Murchadha later became Professor of Sculpturing at the National College of Art and Director of Art History at the National Gallery. One of O’Murchadha’s most famous works was a wooden sculpture of the Virgin Mary depicting how she had appeared to people in the pilgrimage site of Knock in County Mayo. He also created the angel on the monument for the victims of the sunken Lusitania and two busts of the signees of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic in 1916. In 1943 O’Murchadha received the Sheppard Memorial Prize for the figure of a young athlete, possibly the work submitted in 1952.