The Cill Rialaig gallery on Harcourt Street went potty on Tuesday night when Hulda Dee and Bob Hollis opened their exhibition of pit-fired vessels. Hulda is from Rhodesia, but boasts an Irish grandmother and has been living and working in Kerry with her partner Bob for 18 years. An eclectic group came along to admire and buy; Margaret War- ren, a gallery owner from Castletownsend, made the trip; barrister Ercus Stewart arrived after a busy day at the Four Courts and designer Nicky Wallis was just back from Italy. Wallis has started manufacturing his menswear in Italy and shares the same backer as both Dolce and Gabbana and Gianfranco Ferre.
The diminutive American novelist Morgan Llewellyn also popped along. Her last historical epic, The Lion Of Ireland, sold over 15 million copies worldwide and there are film options on three of her other 13 books: "I like them to stay at option stage," she laughed, "then there's no film around to embarrass me!"
This will be one of the last exhibitions to be held at the gallery in its present incarnation. Cill Rialaig founder Noelle Campbell Sharpe is turning the building into her own gallery to be called Origin, which she plans to open in December with an exhibition by sculptor and painter Edwina Sandys, the granddaughter of Sir Winston Churchill.