Carved in 1942, this was Power’s second bust of the Venerable Oliver Plunkett — the seventeenth-century Archbishop of Armagh executed at Tyburn in 1681. His first treatment of the subject, a more conventional limestone portrait bust, had been made in 1921 for St Peter’s Church, Drogheda, Co. Louth — home to Plunkett’s preserved head as a relic. Rather than repeating that earlier portrait, Power chose this time to concentrate entirely on the drama of Plunkett’s martyrdom.
The sculptor depicted the saint at the moment of execution: the head severed at the neck, eyes closed, nostrils slightly distended, the expression one of peace. The journalist Máirín Allen, who visited Power’s studio while he was at work on the piece, described the head as “rapidly taking shape under his deft fingers” and wrote that “it ought to be a beautiful piece of work.”
When the bust was later shown at the RHA Exhibition, a reviewer from The Irish Times wrote that the head of the saint “radiated an extraordinary intensity and dramatic power with the suggestion of the dreadful occasion… this is one of our great sculptor’s achievements.”
The current location of this work is unconfirmed. Research is ongoing.