In ‘The Irish Coast’ Stephen McKenna combines classical and academic approaches to painting with the great 17th century Dutch tradition of marine painting, to comment on a very contemporary, yet universal subject. Painted in 1981 during the height of the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, this painting brings together two different layers of conflict – a huge battle between the forces of nature, land, sea and sky – and the smaller, but no less dogged struggle between two men on the jetty. In the immediate foreground a bird appears oblivious to their petty quarrel.