Local Faces: Maria Wallace

TALLAGHT is known for many things, both good and not so good.

Our sporting excellence is well documented, along with the strength and humour of our people.

Sadly, we’re often subjected to bad press by a media that rarely set foot in the place.

One thing rarely mentioned is our fabulous contribution to the arts.

Through Rua Red and The Civic theatre along with our well-appointed library’s activities there’s always an exhibition or a play or local musicians to see.

It might surprise you to learn that right here in our little burg, we have a huge groundswell of artistic talent amongst us.

It’s under-reported, but the lively arts are alive and well in Dublin 24.

One such talent has a wonderful story to tell.

Born in Catalonia, educated in Chile and living in Tallaght for the past fifty years, Maria Wallace, of St Mark’s Parish, has achieved considerable success both as a painter and a poet.

The Echo was lucky enough to recently sit down with Maria to talk about her life and work.

Upon meeting Maria, her accent is the first thing that strikes you.

Her English is perfect, as one might expect from a lady who’s lived in Ireland for so long, but her accent is pure Catalan.

And I do mean Catalan, not Spanish.

As Maria says herself: “My passport says I’m Spanish but I’m Catalan, and actually I’m also as Irish as somebody who was born here.”

She laughs as she says this but it makes complete sense.

Maria traces her roots back to a small Catalonian town named Platja d’Aro.

It sounds idyllic but as Maria explains, the dictatorship under which the country lived made life very hard.

Maria says her mind is still concocting new challenges and opening new avenues

The education she received there was at best basic and at worst primitive.

Fortunately when she was nine, the family moved to Chile and she considers herself very lucky as the nuns there were very good educators.

“They opened my mind to a world I may not have known if I had stayed in Catalonia.

“All of my teenage years were spent there and I have very happy memories of those years.”

When the family went back to their native country, Maria started working as a hotel receptionist during summer and travelled during winter, and in one of those journeys she met the man who would become her husband, Richard Wallace.

Throughout her life, Maria has felt the need to express her creativity.

She has done commissioned work, one of them The Stations of the Cross in the now closed Oratory and the banner the parish takes on pilgrimages to Lourdes.

She also worked on commissioned landscapes and portraits.

She says: “I believe life is always better if one has a challenge.

“I sat the Irish Leaving Cert and then applied to go to university.

“In 2004 I obtained a BA and the following year an MA in Anglo-Irish Literature.”

She also says that she had given grinds to students in French and Spanish, and for many years had taught Spanish, Adult Education, in Old Bawn Community School, a class she only left two years ago.

“But,” she adds, “I still teach one Spanish class on Friday morning, plus, of course, the creative writing in Rua Red.”

Maria goes on to tell me that for the past thirty odd years she has written poetry, and that in 2006 won the prestigious Hennessy Literary Award, Emerging Poetry Prize.

She has been widely published here and in Scotland, England, Italy, and Australia where one of her poems has been put to music.

She tells me: “At the beginning my writing was influenced by Irish culture, traditions and folklore, though not so much now.

“All is part of how life changes, and how it changes us too.”

A great admirer of Yeats, Kavanagh and Heaney, I asked Maria what inspired her to create.

“Sometimes, when I write or paint or draw, I get the impression it comes from a well deep within, or from a universal consciousness.

“It’s difficult to explain, but, who knows?”

Maria’s first artistic ventures were mainly confined to drawing and painting and before long, she had amassed quite a portfolio of diverse and interesting works.

“I exhibited in the city centre,” she tells me, “every year, in Stephen‘s Green, and I also had my work in a gallery in Powerscourt Town Centre.

I’m happy to say I made a great many sales during those times.”

Drawing inspiration from her favourite poets such as Federico Garcia Lorca, Yeats, Kavanagh and Heaney, she worked really hard to produce work she could be proud of.

“At the beginning I thought I could write like Lorca and tried to copy his style, though soon realised that was a huge mistake.

“I needed to find my own voice as a poet, and thankfully I did.”

Soon, her poetry and verse took on a character which was all her own and that’s when her writing really took off.

Maria makes no secret of the fact that her faith plays a large part in her life and work.

“I’ve always been a devout Catholic, “she tells me, “and whether consciously or not, sometimes religious themes do come up in some of my work.”

As her work has evolved over the years, she’s added many new influences to the style of her poetry.

With all of that said, I haven’t even touched on Maria’s accomplishments, suffice to say that she founded Virginia House Creative Writers group in 1996, a group that is going strong still today, and has edited five of their anthologies.

She has published two bilingual books of poetry (English-Catalan) and another two in her native tongue.

She is also the judge of the Jonathan Swift Poetry and Prose Literary Awards.

If all that wasn’t enough, she won a national prize for one of her pen and ink drawings, and now, from her drawings she is bringing out two sets of meditation cards.

Somehow, this extraordinary lady still finds time to enjoy her family life.

Sadly, Richard, her husband, passed away some years ago but her sons Gerard and Raymond live not too far away and they are as proud of her as she is of them.

I ask Maria what’s next for her and with a giggle she tells me: “When you get to my age, you just enjoy every day and try to take life at its best.

“That said, my mind is still concocting new challenges and opening new avenues.”

We have no doubt that she will discover what she is still wishing for.