New exhibition celebrates the River Suir and landscapes of Tipperary

A Tipperary-born artist returns to Clonmel with an exhibition of paintings that celebrate Clonmel,county Tipperary and the surrounding landscapes.

Witness: Selected Works by Ed Morrissey is showing at Clonmel Library from the March 30 until April 10.
Ed Morrissey is an Irish landscape painter whose work explores the emotional and atmospheric qualities of the natural world.

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Through his paintings, he seeks to capture the experience of being present within a landscape, translating moments of observation into carefully constructed compositions that balance immediacy with reflection. Drawing on years of close observation, Morrissey’s paintings explore the quiet complexity of familiar places—fields, riverbanks, open skies, and the shifting atmospheres of the Irish countryside.

In this exciting exhibition, Morrissey brings together a significant group of landscape paintings, whose work is deeply rooted in the landscapes of County Tipperary. Working primarily in the medium of oils & acrylics on canvas, Morrissey approaches landscape, not simply as an observation, but as a lived experience.

His work is shaped by sustained engagement with place, where memory, observation, and the physical act of painting intersect. The landscapes that emerge are both recognisable and contemplative, capturing fleeting changes in light, weather, and season.

Central to the exhibition is the landscape of south Tipperary and the River Suir, one of Ireland’s great rivers, which rises in the Devil’s Bit Mountains and flows south through the fertile Golden Vale before reaching the sea at Waterford Harbour.

In these paintings, Morrissey bears witness to the character of this environment. Rather than dramatic spectacle, the works reveal quieter moments: the stillness of water, distant horizons softened by weather, and the subtle rhythms of rural life.

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Through restrained colour, layered surfaces, and deliberate mark-making, each painting becomes a record of time spent looking—standing before a place and allowing it to unfold. The river itself and its surrounding countryside form an enduring source of inspiration for Morrissey, offering a landscape marked by slow movement, reflection, and continuity. Indeed, like the landscapes Morrissey portrays, each painting draws you in and leaves you in wonder at what story is unfolding deeper in the enclaves.