Raymond McGrath

[3]: 1  An elder brother, Ivor, died in infancy, and his sister Eileen (who became a notable sculptor and graphic designer[4]) was born in 1907.

[5][3]: 20  In 1924 he published, in a limited edition of 30 copies on Japanese vellum, a book of woodcut illustrations and poetry entitled The Seven Songs of Meadow Lane.

The Wentworth scholarship allowed McGrath to move to London where he studied at the Westminster School of Art before taking up a fellowship at Clare College, Cambridge.

[5] While at Clare, Mansfield Forbes had McGrath redecorate the interior of Finella, a large Victorian house on the Cambridge backs, belonging to Gonville and Caius College.

McGrath's bold modernist remodelling of Finella made adventurous use of materials, with copper-clad doors, an aluminium-walled bathroom, mirrored ceilings and a rubberised floor decorated with Pictish motifs.

In all WAAC accepted 16 pieces from McGrath before he left England to take up the post of Senior Architect in the Office of Public Works in Dublin.

[8] A number of McGrath's aircraft paintings were included in the Britain at War exhibition held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York during 1941.

These included specially-designed woolen carpets, Waterford glass chandeliers, Irish silk poplin hangings and, in terms of fittings, 18th-century chimney-pieces and ornamental plasterwork.

[5] For many years, starting in 1946, McGrath championed and worked on the design for a National Concert Hall for Ireland which was to be built at Raheny.