CITY COUNCIL RETURNS VALUABLE ART COLLECTION

Date Published: 04-Jan-2013

Galway City Council has handed back an important art collection lent to it 23 years ago because it doesn't have a gallery to display it in

The collection – which included paintings by Jack B Yeats, Paul Henry and Sir John Lavery – was returned to the estate of owner Peter Daly last April after lying unseen in storage since 1989.

Peter Daly was a wealthy Irish art collector who lived on the Isle of Man but is understood to have been from Ballinrobe in County Mayo.

A spokesperson for the council says the city museum at Spanish Arch, which is run by the council, was deemed unsuitable for the Daly collection because its two rooms are used for rotating exhibitions.

Daly died in the Isle of Man in 2006 and ownership of the collection was bequeathed to a trust he had established.

Last year Galway city council returned the collection to the trust because of ongoing insurance and storage costs.