[12] In the 1830s, Mulrenin experienced continued growth in his business, especially after the death of John Comerford in 1832 and the relocation of Samuel Lover to London in 1835,[13] since both men were viewed as Ireland's preeminent miniaturists.

[17] External pressures on public buying power, such as the Great Famine, however, led the academy to a financial crisis in the 1850s.

In March 1856, Michael Angelo Hayes was elected secretary and, with the support of the president Martin Cregan and the treasurer Joseph Kirk, pressed for reform.

[23] He claimed to have devised a process of transferring negatives to marble and ivory, rendering the image like a miniature painting.

[26] bodycolour uncertain attribution watercolour Merlin Holland[36] Scientists and Academics Politicians and Nobility Other Though he preferred to depict his contemporaries, Mulrenin also drew inspiration from non-historical figures, such as Shakespeare's King Lear and the mythological Fionn-ghuala, daughter of the sea god Lir.