An exciting new exhibition showcasing the life and work of renowned potter Peter Brennan during his time in Kilkenny from 1941 to 1962 opened in Rothe House,  on Friday 5th September 2008. Entry to the exhibition is included in the admission fee to the House & Garden.

Encouraged by local historian Michael O’Dwyer, the Kilkenny Archaeological Society at Rothe House invited Helena Brennan to set up an exhibition to record Peter Brennan’s more than twenty years (1941-1962) in Kilkenny.

During that period, Peter established art and pottery classes, art exhibitions and societies, and set up the Ring Ceramics Studios Limited in 1945 with the financial and gallery help of art dealer Victor Waddington. Peter converted an old grain store at The Ring which had once been used for bull baiting. The Ring is on Parliament Street, opposite Rothe House (built in 1594) where this archival exhibition will run for six months or more.

The exhibition features a mock-up of the old studio showing many of the methods used, with tools and moulds, illustrating the wide range of production methods undertaken by Peter in Kilkenny in the 1940s and 1950s. In 1964, Peter produced over 3,500 specially commissioned mugs for the inaugural Beer Festival, and almost all of them ‘disappeared’ during the reception on the first night in the Beer Tent.

This is the first opportunity there has been to showcase the life and works of Peter J Brennan while he lived and worked in Kilkenny.