{"id":1942,"date":"2016-10-26T11:35:56","date_gmt":"2016-10-26T11:35:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deafheritagecentre.com\/?p=1942"},"modified":"2017-03-14T20:34:53","modified_gmt":"2017-03-14T20:34:53","slug":"deaf-teacher-and-painters-in-cabra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deafheritagecentre.com\/?p=1942","title":{"rendered":"Deaf Teacher and Painters in Cabra"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h3>\n
\"Thomas <\/a>
Thomas Mahon <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Teaching <\/a>
Teaching Charts <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"John <\/a>
John J. Roe <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Thomas Mahon, from Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow, was one of the new\u00a0pupils who came to Cabra in March 1871. He had been deaf\u00a0from birth and, at the age of seven, was admitted as the\u00a0531st pupil. He was regarded as an exceptionally intelligent\u00a0boy with a particular ability for drawing. On completion of\u00a0his education, the Superior Br. P.M. Wickham, wanted to\u00a0keep him in the school to learn the trades of gardener and\u00a0kitchen servant. However, Thomas teacher Br. Matthew\u00a0Reddington, recognised his artistic talent and, in 1880,\u00a0encouraged him to go to the studio of an an tutor in\u00a0Hawkins Street, Dublin to study sketching and painting.<\/p>\n

After some time, Thomas was offered employment as an\u00a0assistant teacher by Br. Reddington. He was asked to paint\u00a0illustrations on charts for a graded language course for use\u00a0in the classrooms. The chans were painted in brilliant\u00a0colours on a batik black canvas background, thus enabling\u00a0every detail to be clearly seen by the pupils. The illustrations\u00a0were used in language lessons on the use of verbs, nouns,\u00a0prepositions, and so on.<\/p>\n

Around this time the Committee of the Catholic Institute for\u00a0the Deaf and Dumb (CIDD) was desperate to collect money\u00a0for both schools in Cabra to cover school expenses, to pay\u00a0salaries, and to extend the buildings. In 1884 the Committee\u00a0asked John J. Roe to go to the United State of America on a\u00a0fund raising tour. Roe was accompanied by Thomas Mahon,\u00a0whose artistic skills were likely to attract an audience. They\u00a0took the train from Dublin to Cork and from there set sail for\u00a0New York. On arrival they must have seen the same view of\u00a0the big city witnessed by many Irish emigrants. According to\u00a0the Report of the ClDD for 1885, the two visitors travelled\u00a0to Boston, Halifax, Florida, Texas, New Orleans, Colorado\u00a0and other places on their fund raising business. While John\u00a0Roe gave a talk about St. Joseph’s School for Deaf boys and\u00a0the need to build new facilities, Thomas Mahon entertained\u00a0the audience by drawing sketches of animals, famous\u00a0people, scenery and ponraits on a large blackboard.<\/p>\n

During their tour Thomas met six Cabra ex-pupils who\u00a0contributed their hard-earned dollars to the CIDD fund.\u00a0Their names can be seen on the list of donors in the Report\u00a0for 1885. Thomas and John Roe must have laboured very\u00a0hard because their tour continued for many long months as\u00a0they travelled around the eastern States, keeping records of\u00a0the names of donors and their contributions. Unfortunately,\u00a0before they returned home, John Roe died suddenly in New\u00a0York. So Thomas, a young deaf man on his own, was faced\u00a0with the responsibility of bringing the remains back to\u00a0Ireland for burial in Dublin.<\/p>\n

Later, Thomas returned to the States, accompanied by a new\u00a0collector Martin I. Prendergast, to complete the fund raising\u00a0tour. The CIDD annual recon for 1885 tells us that a total of\u00a014,000 dollars was raised. The funds were used to build a\u00a0new west wing in St. Joseph’s to accommodate classrooms\u00a0on the ground floor with a chapel above which were\u00a0completed in 1890. During his stay in the United States.\u00a0Thomas must have visited the Metropolitan Museum of Fine\u00a0Art in New York where he surely saw and studied the\u00a0beautiful Ancient Egyptian paintings and artefacts on\u00a0display. He must have absorbed the details and the designs\u00a0that were later to appear in his own work The character of\u00a0his drawings has a lot in common with hieroglyphics.<\/p>\n

Thomas Mahon painted many hundreds of colourful\u00a0pictograms on eighty charts. The pictures were completed\u00a0in oil paint on thin, smooth, black canvasfpasted onto thick,\u00a0ribbed linen and attached to wooden poles. The chans\u00a0measure three feet wide by two feet eleven inches deep.\u00a0Metal labels, from A1 to A6 and continuing up to H6, were\u00a0screwed on the poles to indicate the order of the charts. He\u00a0also painted hundreds of small,separate pictures of\u00a0children, adults, toys, and numbers, an A to Z index, letters\u00a0and words in neat script, as well as pictures to illustrate\u00a0aspects of arithmetic, the calendar and the seasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thomas Mahon, from Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow, was one of the new\u00a0pupils who came to Cabra in March 1871. He had been deaf\u00a0from birth and, at the age of seven, was admitted as the\u00a0531st pupil. He was regarded as an exceptionally…
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