SALLY SMITH;SALLY SMYTH, who has died aged 79, was an integral part of the folk song revival in the 1960s and was associated with the Tradition Club in Slatterys of Capel Street for many years. She was also a well-known artist who came to prominence late in life.
Born in Dublin, she was the eldest of the four children of Lar O'Neill and his wife, May Gibney.
Her parents had been active republicans in the War of Independence.
They married in 1929, and Sally was born the following year. She was raised in the Portobello area of Dublin.
She began her artistic life by making kites for the RTÉ children's television programme Wanderly Wagon. She was a member of the Weavers' Guild as a spinner, and created fibre sculptures of peat moss and lichens, using wool.
However, it was her two-year foundation course in Dún Laoghaire College of Art and Design that was to prove formative and crucial in her development as an artist.
There she came under the influence of painter and lecturer Therry Rudin who, recognising her talent, advised her to set up her own studio, and to paint.
Her parents' political involvement was to have a profound influence on Sally's work. As a young girl, she had been taken to visit the almost derelict Kilmainham jail where her mother May had been imprisoned in 1921.
When she visited the jail in the late 1990s, she found an inspiring museum. She spent nearly three weeks viewing memorabilia, reading newspapers from between 1800 and 1924, and looking at prisoners' letters and autograph books.
She began to paint a series of pictures on the Kilmainham theme, and was offered studio space in the Protestant chapel.
A bursary was arranged and she spent a year producing almost 40 paintings. Her exhibition Kilmainham Suite was held in 1999, and three years later her Judicial Suite opened at the Law Library. She exhibited regularly at the Kilkenny Arts festival.
At her humanist funeral, friends talked about the many facets of her life. She was a member of the Irish Mountaineering Club and was a brave canoeist. She was generous and patient, and gave much time to the Tara Art group based at Camphill in Wexford. A socialist and feminist who led her life accordingly, she was strikingly beautiful, even into old age. She married Dave Smyth, who sang with folk group The Press Gang for many years.
She is survived by her husband and two children, Stuart and Lucy, and grandchildren.
...
Sally Smyth: born June 23rd, 1930; died November 21st, 2009