Eldest Son of Albert Power
Albert Power Jr. was born 17 January 1912, the eldest son of Albert George Power RHA. He studied under his father and, together with his brother Oliver, worked on numerous church monuments and designs across Ireland — including the 1943–45 commission for the four granite statues at Christ the King Church, Carndonagh, Co. Donegal, completed in collaboration with his father.
He died on 19 February 1973 at his home, "The Burrow", Strand Road, Portmarnock, Co. Dublin, aged 61. He was survived by his wife May Power and four daughters: Rosaleen Murphy, Lily Ingersoll, Deirdre Fortune, and Mary Power.
The Custom House Restoration
Perhaps Albert Jr.'s most significant individual achievement was the restoration of the statues and carvings on the Custom House, Dublin — a project his obituaries describe him as having worked on alone for many years. The Custom House, designed by James Gandon and badly damaged by fire during the Irish Civil War in 1921, required extensive sculptural restoration to its allegorical figures and decorative stonework. That this work was carried out by Albert Jr. places him at the centre of one of the great architectural restoration projects of twentieth-century Dublin.
The Death Mask of Máirtín Ó Cadhain
Albert Jr. made the death mask of Máirtín Ó Cadhain (1906–1970), the Connemara-born Irish-language writer and one of the most significant figures in twentieth-century Irish literature, author of Cré na Cille. Ó Cadhain died in 1970, and the death mask — continuing the family tradition his father had established with the death masks of Collins, Griffith, Brugha and Childers in 1922 — represents a direct continuation of the Power family's particular expertise in this most exacting of sculptural forms.
Further Work
Albert Jr.'s work can also be seen at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Drogheda, and, as noted, at Christ the King Church, Carndonagh, Co. Donegal. As a young man he was a noted long-distance swimmer, an associate of the famed Cass brothers, and took part in the Liffey Swim.
Sourced from obituaries in the Irish Independent and Irish Press, 19 February 1973, held in the family archive.