Artist Ros Harvey and printmaker Tim Stampton live creative lives amidst the windswept beauty of Malin on the Inishowen peninsula where they have their Ballagh Studio.
Ros: "We look over a wonderful bay and mountains and, of course, the light is proverbial. We've got space, freedom, a beautiful rookery above us and the bluebells are quite outstanding. We're surrounded by trees and rough grasses and don't do any ambitious gardening because the winds carry salts that wither plants. We don't know the meaning of the word lonely.
“I come from here, was reared in Malin village. To me it was coming home. I lived in Dublin for a few years and in Australia before that. Tim and I met in England in 1979. In 1988 we landed in Rosslare with the intention of finding a small place with outbuildings. We travelled right up the coast and inland a bit and got slowly closer and closer to Donegal. We were coming through Barnsmore Gap when I realised I felt really at home. I’d been away for 30 years.
“My sister, who’d also settled back, told us about Ballagh; on the side of a mountain and empty for 17 years. It was originally a clachan – a small group of houses with a farmstead, outbuildings and a few family homes. The farmhouse was built in the 1840s. No one, at the time, wanted to tackle five old stone buildings, everyone wanted to build modern bungalows. Some buildings had rusted tin roofs, some were corrugated. Over the years we’ve salvaged slates from all over the place.
“A local builder built my studio around a big bay window we salvaged. It’s up in the trees behind the house in what was originally a privy. We converted a cow byre into a showroom. Altogether we’ve got the house, two studios, framing shop, showroom and print workshop.
First sale
“We’ve worked on the place year by year for 24 years, as work sold and we got money. I concentrate on seascapes and landscapes in pastels, anything that excites me. Tim is a printmaker and wood engraver. Our first sale, off a trestle table in the yard, was six months after we moved in in 1990. We went to work straightaway; it was our livelihood. The art has supported the house ever since.
“It was very much easier to sell in the 1990s, when the Celtic tiger was roaring. We had sales and showings all over; Dublin, Belfast, Louth, Europe the US. We get visitors from everywhere. One day we had someone from Christchurch, New Zealand, followed by people from Alaska. People come to work in the print workshop and sometimes we give small classes to groups.
“We shop in Malin village, only five miles away, or for a big shop go to Carndonagh. Our children love it here, though they’re all away now: one in San Francisco, one in the Netherlands and one in Worcester, England. It’s all been a great adventure.”
Tim: "I grew up in Canada, mostly in St Johns, Newfoundland, where my father was the harbour master. Donegal is balmy, after Newfoundland. There, I remember first snows in August, last snows in May. Here we have flowers year round. It's great here.
“We’ve great space, been able to build workshops with elbow room for larger pieces. We’re incredibly privileged and lucky. We’ve an antique printing press, etching presses, stone lithographic presses and a Vandercook relief press for my limited edition books.
Local stories
“It’s been fun, over the years, turning local stories and legend into pictures. Luckily people buy them and I’ve been able to put it back into the property.
“Some 80 per cent of Newfoundlanders come from Ireland, so I grew up understanding Irish culture. Here, in Malin, one’s able to enjoy what is a very old area; we’ve got stone circles and it’s all very beautiful. But we’re not the sort of culchies that never move out. We show all over. Two years ago we had a show in America.”
