In 1960, Fergus Ryan s father brought him, aged 12, to Dublin Airport to see the first Boeing 707 land. Ten years later, Ryan, an Aer Lingus pilot, was flying them. Then, having retired from the skies, he got a first class honours degree in Theology at Trinity College Dublin, but he always drew and sketched and in the 2000s he began to paint professionally as I wished .
His father taught him to look, to notice things , and Dublin was my visual theatre : the GPO s Ionic pillars, Bank of Ireland had both Ionic and Corinthian, the Custom House, Doric; the figures on the O Connell Monument. Jusepe de Ribera s wrinkled Saint Onuphrius in the National Gallery.