One of my favorite paintings in the world of Irish art is entitled “King O’Toole” by Sean Keating, painted in 1930. At that time, Keating maintained a small studio in Wicklow, outside of Enniskerry. At some point in the late 1920s, he befriended a local shepherd, Joe O’Toole, who stopped by to see him when en-route to sell his sheep at the mart in Enniskerry. (Keating depicted him three times that I know of: in this painting, in another called “Holy Joe in the Mountains” and in a pencil portrait.) The story attached to Joe is what inspired this piece and the March version of it goes by the same name. Allegedly, Joe descended from the famous O’Toole clan who were once local chieftains-back in the 1500s. Their lands were confiscated by the ancestors of the owners of the famous Powerscourt House and Estate at that time. Joe O’Toole was regularly moved into action by this ancient injustice and after selling his sheep he would “fortify himself” at the local pub. Then, he would march down the avenue leading up to Powerscourt House in a fit of pique, all the while “f’in and blind’in” (as the Irish say) Lord Powerscourt and his family, and “urging them” in no uncertain terms to cease and desist their usurpation of his ancestral lands.

As Lord Powerscourt was also the local magistrate, Joe would be carted off to jail for a couple of days, fined a nominal amount and sent back to the hills. The story had many repeat performances as Joe rekindled his emotions and responses at every mart he attended in Enniskerry! The waltz is meant to depict his somewhat sedate, melancholic image in the painting; the March, his trip down the avenue. (Every King deserves a March!)