It may be perched at the tip of the most southerly point of Ireland, but the Mizen Head Visitor Centre has been a good location for Welsh-born artist Jules Thomas to exhibit her work, with thousands of visitors seeing her depictions of landscape and wildlife that decorate the walls of the centre.
Ms Thomas who, like her partner Ian Bailey, is suing the State for wrongful arrest over the murder of French film producer Sophie Toscan du Plantier in Toormore in 1996, has lived in Schull for over 40 years.
She is very familiar with the nuances of light and shade that tint the surrounding west Cork landscape.
She was first commissioned to do a 35ft mural of the Fastnet Lighthouse for the centre in the early 1990s.
Since then she has completed several commissions, depicting both sea life at various tides and the many birds that soar and sail around the rugged promontory.
Visitor Centre
And now she is about to add to her collection at the Mizen Head Visitor Centre, with four landscape scenes in acrylic on canvas depicting the plants that flourish in the mild climate of the Gulf Stream and grow in the varied settings of west Cork.
“I’ve painted four different scenes with different themes – a beach with a cliff, a mountain road with wall, a meadow and a bog, each depicting the various plants that you find there – there must be 150-200 plants in total in the four pieces and they are all botanically accurate,” said Ms Thomas.
She painted the depictions at the studio at her home at the Prairie at Liscaha in Schull which she shares with Mr Bailey.
He is appealing the result of his unsuccessful High Court action last year when a jury took about two hours to dismiss his claim for wrongful arrest by gardaí investigating the murder of Ms Toscan du Plantier.
