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O’Connor, Jeremiah (1835-1880)

O’Connor, Jeremiah

Killarney, Co. Kerry, Ireland; cabinet maker (fl.c.1835-c.1880)

Operated initially from the corner shop, opposite the church in Main Street but by 1858 had additional premises opposite the Kenmare Arms in Main Street. An arbutus davenport with inlay depicting ferns, mountain eagles, deer, arbutus sprays, ivy, shamrock, thistle and rose of about c.1860 bears his maker’s mark: J O’CONNOR, Arbutus & Bog Oak Manufacturer Killarney’ (illus. Irish Arts Review (1996), p.46; Austen (2001), p.178). This mark has been found applied to boxes of this period. In 1858 O’Connor advertised for sale ‘Sugar and Tea Stores, Chess-boards, Work Boxes, Writing Desks, Envelope Boxes, Card Cases &c’.  To attract patrons he displayed in his factory, in an upper room, caged mountain eagles, the head of a wild deer and other curios. During the visit of the Prince of Wales in April 1858 the Prince visited O’Connor’s premises and the proprietor claimed that he made ‘large and selective purchases’. One item selected was probably a fine table of which O’Connor later produced a facsimile which he showed to visitors. When Queen Victoria visited Killarney in 1870 he presented her with a fine cabinet and table and likewise produced facsimiles for public display. The inlaid cabinet is no longer in the Royal Collection, but the original and facsimile may be the two cabinets with the Royal Arms of the United Kingdom on the doors, currently in the Collections of the National Museum in Dublin and the Ulster Museum in Belfast. The business continued until c. 1880 but was by then being described as merely a ‘bog oak warehouse’.

Sources: Irish Arts Review Yearbook, Vol 12 (1996), pp. 45-55; Austen, Tunbridge Ware and Related European Woodwares (2001), pp. 185-88.