Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720 - 1940

Stone carvers. James and John O'Shea are said to have been the sons of a stone carver settled at Ballyhooley, Co. Cork, who may have been a member of the same family as the O'Sheas of Callan, Co. Kilkenny. They worked for DEANE & DEANE & amp; WOODWARD  WOODWARD on the museum at Trinity College, Dublin (1853-57) and, with their cousin or nephew EDWARD WHELAN EDWARD WHELAN , on the University Museum, Oxford (1854-1861).(1)  After finishing the Oxford Museum, all three carried out various other commissions in England. While Whelan is recorded as working in Dublin on the Scottish Provincial Insurance office in 1866, there is little evidence of further work by the James and John in Ireland, according to O'Dwyer, apart from a statement in The Architect of 4 May 1872, that 'O'Shea' had executed the carving on the Kildare Street Club (1859).  

Local tradition in Callan maintains that James and John O'Shea returned to Callan when they left England. A monumental sculptor named James O'Shea (1815ca-1881) and his son Edward (1853-1910), who specialized in carving Celtic crosses, were active in Callan from the late 1860s until the early 1880s. Edward O'Shea later carried on the business in Kilkenny where he was mayor from 1904 to 1906.

See WORKS.



References

All information in this entry is from Frederick O'Dwyer, The Architecture of Deane & Woodward (1997), 149,222-252,404-6,565-6, which see for further information about the O'Shea's work in England.For James and Edward O'Shea of Callan, see Michael O'Dwyer, 'The O'Shea faily of Callan and Kilkenny - Sculptors' in Michael O'Dwyer (ed.), Kilkenny Gravestone and Monument Illustrations (Kilkenny: 2012), 71-76.


(1) According to Michael O'Dwyer, op. cit., 71, James and John O'Shea and Edward Whelan also worked with the Deanes (as builders) at Convamore House, Ballyhooly, Co. Cork.


3 work entries listed in chronological order for O'SHEA, JAMES & JOHN *


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Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, COLLEGE GREEN, TRINITY COLLEGE, MUSEUM
Date: 1854-1857
Nature: Stone carving. Designs for capitals drawn by Elizabeth Siddal and J.E. Millais.
Refs: Frederick O'Dwyer, The Architecture of Deane & Woodward (1997), 149;  Christine Casey, The Buildings of Ireland: Dublin (2005), 405.

Building: ENGLAND, OXFORD, UNIVERSITY MUSEUM & CURATOR'S HOUSE
Date: 1854-1860
Nature: Ornamental carving by O'Sheas and Edward Whelan.
Refs: Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal 25 (Jul 1862), 189, Pls. 15,16.

Building: CO. DUBLIN, DUBLIN, KILDARE STREET, NO. 001 (KILDARE STREET CLUB)
Date: 1861a
Nature: 'The identity of the carvers [of the external mullions] has been the subject of much discussion, and it seems that the O'Shea brothers worked here together with C.W. Harrison and Charles William Purdy' (Casey)
Refs: Christine Casey, The Buildings of Ireland: Dublin (2005), 489.