O'Shea and Whelan

James and John were the sons of a craftsman who came to Cork to work on the construction of Convamore House, and who remained and set up a workshop in nearby Ballyhooly village.

The architects Thomas Newenham Deane and Benjamin Woodward were proposing to work with Ruskin on the design of the new Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

According to Henry Acland, the professor who liaised with Ruskin, James O'Shea proceeded to carve caricatures of members of Convocation on the entrance of the building in the form of parrots and owls.

The O'Sheas and Whelan went on to work with Woolner and the architect Alfred Waterhouse in the design of the Manchester assize courts, producing a series of capitals depicting gruesome forms of punishment in history.

James O'Shea returned to Ireland to work in Callan as a monumental sculptor, specialising in Celtic crosses and establishing a new firm with his son Edward.

A fine example of this work is the Celtic cross in memory of the children's author Talbot Baines Reed, which stands at Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington, London.