eolaí the artist
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eolai.bsky.social
eolaí the artist
@eolai.bsky.social
4.4K followers 1.1K following 2.2K posts
I paint pictures. Cycled across continents. Like walking when not limping. Loved a dog. Writing a book. #art #cyclist #Dublin #efc Liam Daly he/him
Website: https://liamdaly.com/
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eolai.bsky.social
eolaí the artist @eolai.bsky.social · Oct 18
An introduction cogged from elsewhere online. Hello. I paint pictures, mostly of Ireland, but for 12 yrs now I've been a full-time unpaid carer so time to paint is rare. I've cycled across America and Europe, and among other adventures did a painting twitter cycling tour around Ireland. 1/2
eolai.bsky.social
On this day of, whatever it is, an old cartoon of mine.
On a white landscape background, beside a black line drawing of a pair of scissors on the right, handwritten in black is: Are you looking for love? Seamus asked Sofia. But Sofia was just looking for the scissors. In the bottom right is a copyright symbol beside the logo of American Hell, where American is in handwriting in black, and the Hell is courier font in red.
February 14, 2026 at 4:34 PM
Reposted by eolaí the artist
eolai.bsky.social
My #painting "Waterford I" came out of all kinds of times in the south of Ireland, all of them good and some that hadn't happened yet. I should have more such times. #art #SpeirGhorm #Januarty #sky
Landscape format in loose acrylics on canvas. Across a central band of the painting, along a horizontal band of blue representing a body of water, is a waterfront of a line of buildings in various greys, suggested by shape and darkness of roofs and windows, with a fat round peaked tower on the left in red in sunshine, and green and black in shadow. In the centre-right is a cluster of towers behind the water front buildings: In the centre of them is a castellated square tower in warm colours on the sun side and dark blue the shadow side (the right); behind it to the left is a church steeple in grey and dark blue the shadow side, and also in grey and dark blue behind to the right is a narrow square tower with a triangular-top. Right along the water's edge are flat shapes in white and black suggestive of boats. The water is the bottom quarter of the painting. Sky is a very painterly yellow with white and faint touches of green mixed in. Signed top left, Liam Daly
January 13, 2026 at 9:36 PM
eolai.bsky.social
Time I suppose for a #painting. "Connemara Cottage II" was painted because I have a fondness for things I can't quite see properly, and even now in my chair as I look at this painting I raise myself up ever so slightly to try and see a bit more of the cottage. Mountains too though. #art #SpeirGhorm
Landscape format in painterly acrylics on canvas. Small white cottage with very dark roof and white chimney is nearly half way up to the right nestled into a ledge on a hill beside a small group of dark wine-coloured trees with pale orange trunks. In front of it a lime field slopes down to the bottom of the picture, as does a blue and green field over the stone wall to the right, and an olive green field to the left across a dark ditch, while behind the cottage are rounded hills of a darker olive green, and they're in front of a pale green and grey pointed rocky small mountain with blue mountains behind it on both sides. Sky is very pale pure blue. Along the bottom edge are the tops of some bright green bushes, and 3 small trees at the bottom of the stone wall, with pink trunks and branches rising into dark alizarin clumps. Signed bottom right in pale blue, Liam Daly
February 12, 2026 at 9:00 PM
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eolai.bsky.social
A #painting you might like. "Pier Fishing" came out of all the times I've gone to a pier and some young woman or young man was there before me owning the world and its oceans, and I would quietly watch. While this particular scene was in Antrim it was inspired by many piers. #art #SpeirGhorm #scape
Landscape format in acrylics on canvas. The end of a pier virtually in silhouette juts out from the right edge almost as far as halfway across the picture. An otherwise gently rippling sea splashes against the pier end with the white surf and backlit turquoise water reaching halfway up to the top of the pier where a lone person stands casting with a rod beside a similarly silhouetted post with perhaps a lamp on top and something jutting out, like a directional sign. The rest of the water is a deep blue and green in short horizontal strokes, with paler bits of reflection, especially of the splash against the pier and the narrow strip of sunlit brick down the pier end. The horizon cuts across about the mid-point of the picture and of the fishing figure. Across the background filling the whole horizon is a single flat-ish triangular hill of misty orangey brown underneath a sunset pale orangey yellow sky with horizontal paler smokey bands. Signed top left in blue, Liam Daly
January 30, 2026 at 10:45 PM
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eolai.bsky.social
Have a #painting from a few years ago. The name of this street in Dublin is "Coke Lane", and it's just off Smithfield. That's a fine pub down there but I've always liked the lane in and of itself, so I painted it. #art #SpeirGhorm
Portrait format in acrylics on mat board. View down urban lane with backs of buildings on the left, 2 redbrick terrace houses facing out on the right, and a single-story rear entrance to pub straight ahead. Loosely painted. Road surface is warm grey with, on left, double yellow lines and dark green parked car seen from behind, and on right, several silver/grey cars facing forwards and backwards. A black horizontal sign runs along the top of the pub with in faint orange letters are the words, Frank Ryan & Son. Below the sign a dark blue canopy extends over the door and window. Behind the dark green of the rear of pub are the backs of three and four story buildings, white on left and brown brick on right, with a jumble of architectural features like balconies and extensions. The sky is cloudy pale yellow-grey. Signed bottom right in dark blue, Liam Daly
January 29, 2026 at 12:00 AM
eolai.bsky.social
Today is a good day. Because yesterday I finished the richly lyrical and atmospheric "Elmet" by Fiona Mozley, so today I get to go to my To-Be-Read piles and choose a new book to read.
February 10, 2026 at 3:24 PM
eolai.bsky.social
A #painting I did some years ago. "Mayo Cloud" came out of a time I was cycling in the north of the western Irish county. It was the afternoon, so naturally the sky was very dark. And the sun shone brilliantly in moments where it was allowed as I weaved happily through rain and sun. #art #SpeirGhorm
Square canvas in acrylic. Against a dark blue painterly sky that occupies just over half of the painting, a white and grey fluffy cloud reaches from the top left corner across the top and starts downward at the right culminating in what is almost like two or three fingers pointing down close to the right edge. The bottom third of the painting has a dark green and brown hill sloping down from right to the bottom left corner, with the gables of 3 white cottages visible on the edge of the slope and little pale chimneys sticking up from their pale grey roofs. Beyond in the distance is a very dark blue ridge of a mountain with in front of it closer to the houses a sliver of flat land lit up in golden orange arcing very gently from the left edge to behind two of the three cottages. Signed bottom right in pale blue, Liam Daly
February 9, 2026 at 9:42 PM
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jayspencergreen.bsky.social
The perfect gift for Valentine’s Day: The nerds-against-the-Patriarchy romcom guaranteed to tickle your inner geek!

amzn.eu/d/0j5SRdUN
Image shows the cover of the author’s book, featuring a smiling donkey with a saddle on its back.
February 9, 2026 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by eolaí the artist
eolai.bsky.social
Anyway, here's a #painting. From the southwest of Ireland "Clonakilty, Pearse Street" came out of visits to west Cork where I enjoyed cycling and walking from one end of the town to the other. And back again. And again. And stopping for the odd rest. That sort of thing. #art #SpeirGhorm
Landscape format in acrylic on canvas. View down a street of 3-story buildings that bends to the right. Sky is a painterly canary yellow with touches of pale lime. Footpaths are yellow with under-painting of orange showing through where broken. Kerbs are blue. Road surface is pale blue-grey with a double yellow line on the right edge. Buildings have shop fronts and pubs at street level mostly in a different colour to upper stories which are blue, orange, white, purple and red. Signs, flags, and hanging flower baskets jut out. A lilac and blue banner hangs across street at top level, and a church spire protrudes up behind a row of dormer windows left of centre. Signed bottom right, Liam Daly
January 20, 2026 at 11:33 PM
eolai.bsky.social
I pause from reading a book, noticing when in the act of reading that all around me the world is stilled. It's a shame to have to pause.
February 8, 2026 at 10:11 PM
eolai.bsky.social
Have a #painting. From a few years back "The Long Walk Again" is not the first time I've painted the iconic Galway scene. And knowing me it's unlikely to be the last. There are other places in the west of Ireland to paint, but something about the shapes and space draw me back here. #art #SpeirGhorm
Landscape format in acrylics on mat board. Between a yellow into orange sky, and a lime into green body of water, is a horizontal strip of a terrace of 10 houses (left to right: pale green, pale blue, paler blue, white, dark blue, red, mid-blue, yellow, pale blue, pink) with dark blue and purple slate roofs. Three houses have 3 stories, the rest 2. All have small dark windows. Behind are rooftops and gables, and in front is a dark blue quay wall running across the width of the painting. It has 2 small pale blue and white fishing boats docked on green and yellow seaweed at bottom of the quay wall on the right. A small round orange buoy floats in the middle of the harbour to the left. Signed bottom right in red, Liam Daly
February 7, 2026 at 11:50 PM
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eolai.bsky.social
#art A sketch from a few years ago. "The Deadman's Inn". One day back when the world was closed I cycled up the road here in Dublin west, and sat on the grass in the sun, to sketch one of my local pubs where I've had good times inside. #SpeirGhorm #urbansketching
Sketchbook is open turned sideways so showing in landscape format a sketch, in watercolour and black ink line, of a single-story pub, with mock-tudor pediments above the door in the centre and both windows either side. Purple-grey slate roof capped with orange tiles, black railings in front with stone base, and peeping over the roof is the apex and chimneys of another roof - of a house structure which is part of the pub. Foliage of various trees is behind and on both sides. Gantry signs, in blue and in white, of a major road partially visible in distance behind. White and pale blue sky. Handwritten on bottom: The Deadman's Inn, Old Lucan Road, Palmerstown, Sunday 3 May 2020
January 12, 2026 at 11:16 PM
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eolai.bsky.social
A #painting from a couple of years ago of the southwest of Ireland. "Sneem II" was started twenty years earlier and worked on every year until I was finally happy that I'd captured my first experience of the County Kerry town. Which was a great one by the way. #art #SpeirGhorm
Landscape format in acrylics on canvas. A sunny summer day's view along an inlet or river, to a small town with hills behind. The sky is pale blue with a tinge of teal, a lone whisked light cloud sits in the centre. The hills are brown with wine and green tinges, and bold shadows of deep blue. The town is a collection of simplified soft blocks, most two-stories high, with a white tower at the right end. They have dark roofs, and are mostly grey with a warm yellow one near either end, and a bold green one in the centre. The town forms a central horizontal band. The water is blues and purples, stylized with graphic horizontal shapes, and the land on the right mid-ground is similarly stylised with pale green grass, yellow and darker green bushes, and orange and purple bank. Signed bottom left in dark blue, Liam Daly
January 17, 2026 at 11:24 PM
eolai.bsky.social
Have a #painting. "Burren Tree" is from 6 years ago. I painted it because I love stones, let alone fields of stone. And I really like walls. You know where you stand with a wall. Sometimes the dry stone ones fall down a little, but if that gives you a better view of a tree, great. #art #SpeirGhorm
Landscape format in acrylics on mat board. Foreground is limestone karst in very pale shades of lilac and blue-grey, then long rough yellow-green grass before a dry stone wall running horizontally which dips in the middle showing full narrow white trunk of small tree leaning to the right and topped with a clump of scant green foliage with touches of red. Stones in walls are rendered in pale blue with dark blue shadows and crevices. They show a long narrow side facing viewer and mostly upright or tilted. Behind the tree are wide areas of flat lilac-grey karst, likes fields of stone, with dry stone walls running across and some dark green bushes until along the horizon a strip of low blue-green hills with some darker trees and hedgerows smudged in. A larger long hill of lilac is behind that and on the right further away is the edge of a larger pale blue mountain. Sky is a very pale grey. Signed bottom left in dark green-blue, Liam Daly
February 4, 2026 at 7:32 PM
eolai.bsky.social
A #painting for a brief distraction. "Dublin, Purple and Orange" I painted because Dublin is home, and what can one say about one's home? I can actually talk a lot, so could wax purple about it all day, but in this instance I decided to simply give you my Dublin - painted in purple. #art #SpeirGhorm
Landscape format in painterly acrylics on canvas. Under a yellow sky with pale yellow horizontal clouds, rises the tall square tower of Liberty Hall on the right, in stripes of turquoise gaps between windows of purple and dark blue, topped with a pale turquoise square hat with a dark blue zig-zag brim. Foreground is the River Liffey, orange with hints of red bleeding through from underneath, and with reflections of buildings in horizontal strokes of purple and turquoise. Centre of picture is where the balustrade-topped O'Connell Bridge coming from right edge meets the Boardwalk and its pale railing coming from the left edge. Shadows of very dark blue are underneath the pale railings of the boardwalk and the two visible arches of the bridge between their pale piers. Buildings along quays are about 4-storeys high in shades of lilac and very dark blue, mostly showing chimney tops, roofs, and hints of windows and shop fronts, because they're behind a line of trees along the river wall, their foliage in shades of light turquoise and dark blue. Signed top left in blue, Liam Daly
February 3, 2026 at 10:04 PM
eolai.bsky.social
Every direction I look in the world, near and far, is an unrelenting shitshow.
February 3, 2026 at 5:54 PM
Reposted by eolaí the artist
eolai.bsky.social
Have a #painting why don't you. "Bantry Brendan" was painted because I like sitting in the west Cork town eating a sandwich as I look up at the sculpture, by Imogen and Ian Stuart, of Brendan the Navigator looking out to the Atlantic - or Bantry Bay at least. #SpeirGhorm #ArtYear
Painting in portrait format of stylized bronze statue of St Brendan and another monk in a tiny boat atop a grey stone plinth against a sky that is somewhere between blue and turquoise. The boat has curved spiral-ish wave bands attached to its side, and Brendan is standing up with his arms outstretched, the other monk sitting behind him. The bronze is rendered realistically in its bronze metal colour with green patches of patin, and some very dark shadows on underside of waves bands, and lenghtways pieces of 'wood' that curve dramatically up at the front of the boat, and along creases of the monks' robes. Signed bottom right, Liam Daly
November 9, 2025 at 10:00 AM
eolai.bsky.social
In the lane beside our house is a pile which is like the start of a novel: on top of a spillage of several kilograms of what looks like flour, is up to a dozen broken eggs, a t-shirt, sweatpants, and a pair of socks. I'm trying not to think what happened lest I not like where I end up.
February 2, 2026 at 4:44 PM
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eolai.bsky.social
A #painting I did in Ireland's County Tyrone. "Weir at Sion Mills" came after a perfect night in Strabane where the next day I was brought to the attractive village of Sion Mills to see the weir. I did the painting before cycling on to Derry and beyond Ballykelly. #art #SpeirGhorm #ArtAdventCalendar
Landscape format in acrylics on canvas. Under a bold yellow painterly sky you are looking up a river. In the foreground the horizontal strokes of the lilac, teal and midnight blue flatness of the water on the right tumbles to the left over the weir's edge down a slope in pale lilac and blue-green but mostly cream and white splashing colours with dark almost black rocks at the bottom. On the right hand bank inset from the flat strip of green grass along the river's edge there is a long clump of large dark trees leading to the horizon where there is a low hill with suggestions of fields of varying greens separated by dark hedgerows. The left hand bank is only visible in the distance where there is a clump of several dark trees leading to the same low hill. Tree tops on both sides have glimpses of a red under-painting. Signed top left, Liam Daly
December 11, 2025 at 6:16 PM
eolai.bsky.social
Finally got to reading "Shy" by Max Porter. I loved his previous 3 books so it's a way with words I'm very happy among. Am still thinking about it - in a good way. Suspect I'll read it again even though I'm generally not a re-reader. In other words, I liked it.
January 31, 2026 at 11:53 PM
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eolai.bsky.social
Time for an older #painting. "Sheep, Stone Wall I" came out of walking and cycling past so many sheep and liking stopping to look at them. Same for stone walls. This sheep was in Ireland, but it's probably very like sheep in other countries. #art #SpeirGhorm #ArtYear
Square format in acrylic on canvas. On a painterly muted green background, paler and more towards an ochre higher up which is further away, stands a lone sheep in the bottom half of the painting with its right side facing the viewer and its head turned looking directly at the viewer. The sheep has a heavy coat and is rendered stylistically in flat areas of colour with hard curved edges. It has a navy head, ears, and legs, with lighter blue edging. Its body is white on top, then areas as you go down of cream, lilac, red, green and almost black underneath. In the background in the top right are a few loose stones of the remains of a wall, in navy with blue edging. Signed bottom left in dark blue, Liam Daly
December 28, 2025 at 10:56 PM
eolai.bsky.social
A #painting you might like. "Pier Fishing" came out of all the times I've gone to a pier and some young woman or young man was there before me owning the world and its oceans, and I would quietly watch. While this particular scene was in Antrim it was inspired by many piers. #art #SpeirGhorm #scape
Landscape format in acrylics on canvas. The end of a pier virtually in silhouette juts out from the right edge almost as far as halfway across the picture. An otherwise gently rippling sea splashes against the pier end with the white surf and backlit turquoise water reaching halfway up to the top of the pier where a lone person stands casting with a rod beside a similarly silhouetted post with perhaps a lamp on top and something jutting out, like a directional sign. The rest of the water is a deep blue and green in short horizontal strokes, with paler bits of reflection, especially of the splash against the pier and the narrow strip of sunlit brick down the pier end. The horizon cuts across about the mid-point of the picture and of the fishing figure. Across the background filling the whole horizon is a single flat-ish triangular hill of misty orangey brown underneath a sunset pale orangey yellow sky with horizontal paler smokey bands. Signed top left in blue, Liam Daly
January 30, 2026 at 10:45 PM
Reposted by eolaí the artist
eolai.bsky.social
I often get asked about my painting process. There is no one process I use all the time, but about probably 6 different ways I might start a painting, whether in studio or en plein air. Here's one way - this is "Poulnabrone II" in an early stage of progress side-by-side with the complete painting.
Two painted squares beside each other. The finished painting is on the right. It shows a megalithic portal tomb - a large flat stone slab balanced on 3 upright stones with another large slab fallen beside them closer to the viewer. Surrounding area is stone of pale blue and lilac with patches of orange grass with more orange visible across the bottom quarter. Sky is a dark smokey blue, like a grey-ish midnight blue, contrasting with the brighter parts of the tomb which are very pale lilac, close to white, except for the shadow areas which are very dark blue, darker than navy. Horizon runs across the centre of the painting with only the top half of the tomb breaking the horizon. The left square shows the same painting but in an early stage of development. The horizon is in the same place across the centre, with the sky a watered down ultramarine bright blue. The bottom quarter, where most of the orange grass is in the completed painting, is an orange ochre colour in a solid band across the full painting with a hard edge. Between the sky and orange, where the stones are in the finished painting, is all painted lilac, with some subtle brushed in blues and pinks. Painted on top of all three colour bands are a load of hard-edged very dark blue shapes, almost exactly the same shapes and locations where the navy shadows appear in the finished paintings. They represent the shadows of the large stones of the tomb and of other larger stones scattered around.
December 19, 2025 at 11:00 PM
eolai.bsky.social
From a couple of years back a #painting. "North Mayo Coast" I painted after a trip to Downpatrick Head where I didn't go up Downpatrick Head to enjoy views of the Dún Briste sea stack but instead went the opposite direction along the coast and just stood in the wind looking. #art #SpeirGhorm
Landscape format in acrylics on canvas. Close up view of a gap in a wooden fence for walking through to the ocean on the right. Along the left side of the gap is a dry stone wall with a clump of long orange grass sprouting out from underneath it at the left end dominating the bottom left corner of the picture, and a green plant with little yellow flowers growing out of the cracks of the wall to the right of the orange clump. Over the wall we see through barbed wire to a lime green rough field that runs along the left edge of the picture and leads up to a brown bank on the right where it drops down to a bed of pink rock that we see through the gap as it edges the ocean which is a smokey pale blue-green except in all the parts where it hits the rocks and is white. Along the horizon past the lime field is a long low mountain of faded dark green above a strip of maroon. Behind to the left is a blue mountain, and further in the distance on the right edging the ocean is a pale blue mountain. The foreground on the right has the wooden fence post with a fluffy clump of green and orange grass at its base. There are three horizontal strips of wood with a wire mesh attached through which we see the ocean . The sky is big billowing clouds with pale grey underneaths, white top edges, and a gap in the middle showing pale blue. Signed bottom right in dark blue, Liam Daly.
January 29, 2026 at 9:56 PM
Reposted by eolaí the artist
eolai.bsky.social
A #painting. "Garristown". One cold day I went out at 5am, got two buses, unfolded my bike, cycled it a few km over a hill into very north County Dublin and sat down in this small village. I poured a cup of tea and thought, “I could live here”. Then I painted this as I drank my tea. #art #SpeirGhorm
Landscape format on paper. Ink and watercolour painting of two joined together two-story long stone buildings facing right. They have slate roofs of blue grey holding several grey chimneys, and are set in behind a lawn of mixed greens with two small grey driveways across to it, and at the end on the right three dark trees with light green upper parts. Lower story of near building has 4 narrow window bays with a black door on the right, and corresponding windows above including the door, though directly above the door around that window is all ochre. The stones of the near building are sporadic and rendered in different shades of cool and warm greys with a small number of orange stones dotted around, and also random outlines in black. To its left a large black door-gate joins the building to a single-story wall of similar style with a dark slate roof. Above that black door-gate we see the gable end of the long building from which an antenna stretches up past its end chimney. The further building on its right has pale grey stones with a centre black door and one window either side with details joining them to windows on the upper storey. The sky is left blank white. Signed bottom left in black ink, Liam Daly
January 2, 2026 at 9:30 PM