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Irish Gothic:  Jock McFadyen:  Oil on canvas:  1986-87
Purchased with the assistance from the MGC/V&A Purchase Grant Fund

‘The eyes are watching from each of the buildings, it’s very unwelcoming. Everyone is staring and watching.’
 
‘I don’t know what to make of those men sheep things.’
 
 ‘Her face looks beaten up, it’s black and blue.’
 
 ‘It’s a bit scary. The mood is quite depressing.’
 
 ‘It looks like a painting gripped with fear. Everyone is watching each other. Everyone is scared of each other. The English watching the Irish, and the Irish watching the English.  Living there would be like living under apartheid.’
 
Jock McFadyen is one Britain’s most highly respected painters. His paintings refer to work he knows, to experiences he has had and observations he has made. During the 1980s McFadyen visited Belfast a number of times, staying with friends and observing the annual Orange day parade. His work of this time is important and provides an insight into a part of Irish history he witnessed at first hand.
 
Irish Gothic is one of a series of works on the theme of the Ulster Troubles which McFadyen completed in 1987. It is the largest and perhaps the most disturbing image from the series and is an excellent example of McFadyen’s work.
 
On his way from Belfast airport McFadyen noticed an isolated farm building with a Union Jack flag flying above it. He painted the landscape first, with the eyes staring from each window showing the atmosphere of fear and distrust in Ulster. The farm was a settlement in a hostile land, the eyes wary and watchful. Painted with gloomy human heads, the animals look around as if sensing danger in the air. The farmer and his wife were painted last. They are the occupants of the farm. They stare out of the painting looking guarded and distrustful. The farmer is holding a pitchfork like a weapon; this makes him look as though he is guarding his land like a soldier. His wife is standing looking nervous behind her husband.
 
McFadyen borrowed the format of Grant Wood’s famous painting ‘American Gothic’ of 1930. This painting shows the quiet calmness of an American mid West couple, this in stark contrast to the way McFadyen has painted the insecurity of the Ulster farmer.  Ownership of the land in Wood’s painting is seen as the foundation of the farmer’s freedom but in McFadyen’s work it is the cause of fear; ownership of land being the cause if the Ulster conflict.