Jerome Connor

The Irish-American sculptor Jerome Connor was born at Annascaul, Co. Kerry and lived there for fourteen years before emigrating with his family to the United States of America. After spending some years at a variety of trades, he settled down in his late twenties to a career as a sculptor and bronze founder. Although he claimed to be a self-taught artist, close similarities between his work and that of Augustus St. Gaudens suggest some level of training in the older artist's studio. He was already well-known in America, working for the Roycroft Foundation, and on such large monument as the Archbishop Carroll Memorial for Georgetown Catholic University and the Angels of the Battlefields Memorial in Washington, when in 1925 he came back to Ireland to work on one of his biggest commissions, the Lusitania Memorial. Other big projects included The Kerry Pikeman and Eire, a memorial to commemorate the Gaelic poets of 18th century Kerry. Failure to establish these projects on a sound financial base led to a series of law suits and to Connor's bankruptcy in 1936. This, and his flamboyant bohemian personality, obscure a serious, disciplined attitude to work; he cast the first heroic bronzes in Ireland using the lost wax method and also created such memorable public monuments as the Robert Emmet Memorial, Dublin, and the unfinished Tralee Pikeman.