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JAMES GREY RHA (fl.1865-1884) John Doolin, Ringkeeper at the Wrestling, Phoenix ParkOil on board, 18.5 x 14.5cmInscribed 'The

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Lot 569

JAMES GREY RHA (fl.1865-1884) John Doolin, Ringkeeper at the Wrestling, Phoenix ParkOil on board, 18.5 x 14.5cmInscribed 'The Smoker, purchased at Lord Powerscourt Auction, Bennetts Ormonde Quay 1894J.D. Spence label versoThis small work by James Grey, RHA, is a rare and highly evocative link to an era when outdoor wrestling in the Phoenix Park attracted huge crowds. It shows John Doolin who took the role of referee, or ‘ring keeper’, in the sometimes rough-and-ready bouts of wrestling which took place in the park. Doolin is shown in strict profile, his hat pulled tightly down to the nape of his neck and enjoying his pipe – the ‘smoke’ of the work’s title. Grey presents Doolin as a no-nonsense figure – his was a demanding role – and very much as a man of the (sporting) world who has seen it all. It is a rare portrait for the period of a humble Dubliner accorded respect and dignity and a welcome corrective to the caricatured portrayals of artists like Erskine Nicol and Charles Henry Cook. Showing how sport can transcend barriers of class and, we can presume, confession, it was almost certainly commissioned by a leading member of the ascendancy class, Viscount Powerscourt. The artist and other members of his family has close links with the Powerscourts, based on a shared loved of sport. James Grey was the son of Charles Grey (1808-1892) and brother of several artists including Edwin Landseer Grey and Alfred Grey. James exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy from 1865 to 1884 and at the Royal Academy in London on two occasions in the 1870s. Although, inexplicably, Strickland fails to mentioned it, he was elected HRHA and eventually HRA. He resided variously at addresses in Lower Gardiner, Mountjoy Square and Northumberland Avenue, Kingstown, and his exhibits included landscape and genre scenes.The painting was sold at ‘Lord Powerscourt’s sale, Bennetts Ormond Quay, [in] December 1894’ and the artist’s links to the Wingfields, Viscounts Powerscourt, go back to his father, Charles, who Strickland notes, ‘was taken up by Lord Londonderry and Lord Powerscourt and spent much of his time with them in the Scottish Highlands, where as a good rifle shot, a teller of stories and an amusing companion he was a useful and entertaining guest. Charles Grey painted a portrait of Mervyn 7th Viscount Powerscourt (1836-1904) which he exhibited in the RHA in 1863, and other works commissioned by Powerscourt reflect their love of field sports for example the Lost Stage, Glenisla (RHA 1859) and Charles’s son, James, clearly continued this profitable connection with the family. In 1869 he exhibited ‘The Hope of the Family’ which he noted in the catalogue was ‘the property of Viscount Powerscourt’ . Indeed a work by the elder Grey, Old Donald McLea, Forester of this Grace the Duke of Sutherland (RHA 1861), again described as belonging to Viscount Powerscourt, echoes this work by his son in its portrayal of another venerable sporting figure. Wrestling was immensely popular in early modern Ireland and transcended social and religious distinctions. The Phoenix Park, which had been opened to the public in 1746, was in the nineteenth century ‘Ireland’s Wrestling headquarters’. Contests were generally held in the park’s Seven Acre Field and also in the Polo Ground. The historian of wrestling in Ireland, Paul Ignatius Gunning, notes that there was no ring but that a fighting arena was formed by the circle of spectators. In 1877, Bram Stoker, the writer, who in his youth had been a distinguished amateur athlete at Trinity College, noted that the ring was controlled by a few ‘men of authority’, ringmasters such as John Doolin shown here who enforced rigid impartiality among the crowd. ‘The rationale behind this honour-code was that while local supporters might cheer their man “to the echo” the stranger was at a disadvantage’. As this account dates from just the year before Grey painted Doolin, no doubt he was one of the Phoenix Park ringmasters of whom the author of Draculas was thinking. Stoker recounts that sometimes Doolin and his colleagues had to deploy ‘exceeding violent’ methods, often wielding a whip. This was necessary as the large crowds gathered to watch bouts in the Phoenix Park could, on occasion, turn violent. In May 1835 after a wrestling match a group of a hundred men ran riot in Parkgate Street and faction fights with shillelaghs drawn often ensued. Sometimes the generally more humble attendees of the wrestling were joined by young swells from the Vice-Regal Lodge. The crowds so close to the home of the Queen’s representative sometimes provided a cause for alarm for the Castle authorities. Indeed, the crowds gathered for wrestling sometimes masked revolutionary assemblies of secret societies using the event for cover, while on one famous occasion in 1882, not long after Grey painted Doolin, the Lord Lieutenant mistook the assassins of the Chief Secretary for ‘the humbler classes’ involved in ‘horseplay or wrestling’. Despite these associations, wrestling was patronised by members of the Irish Ascendancy classes, such as Powerscourt, as well as visiting English officials based in the park. This portrayal of John Doolin offers something of a valedictory image, marking the end of this era of wrestling in the park. By this date Gaelic games had overtaken it,m and many other sporting activities, in popularity. Several former wrestlers like Liam McCarthy (1853-1928) becoming prominent in the GAA. An important document of Irish sporting history, this endearingly characterful profile prefigures other portrayals of those involved in Irish sports such as Seán Keating’s Tipperary Hurler and John Luke’s, The Tipster.

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