The three panels displayed in this exhibition are the earliest known works in stained glass by Harry Clarke (1889-1931). Dating to a highpoint in the Celtic Revival period, they were made while the artist was in his early twenties and still a student at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art.

In 1911, Clarke was awarded a highly coveted gold medal for The Consecration of St Mel, Bishop of Longford, by St Patrick (1910), The Godhead Enthroned (1911), and The Meeting of St Brendan with the Unhappy Judas (1911) in the Board of Education National Competition atSouth Kensington.

Taken collectively, they offer very early evidence of the artist’s emerging creativity and also anticipate the inventiveness of his later work, particularly his first major commission, in 1916, at the Honan Chapel, University College Cork.

These three rare panels were repaired and cleaned, in August 2023, by stained-glass conservator Philip Crook before being fitted to new conservation-grade display frames.

A short film by Marcella O’Connor about the conservation process accompanies this exhibition.