Hi Rosy,
A few more articles, excuse spelling auto translator.
18th May 1929 Kerryman
Through th e death of Mrs. McKew at an advanced age, we have lost a. kind good charitable neighbour, and a sincere fnend. The deceased lady who was mother-in-law of Rev Mr Jennings decently transferred from Dingle), was sixty three years in Yalentia, where she and here husband, Mr. John Mc-Kew, and all her nice highly _cultui'ed family, have always been held in very high esteem by all classes and creeds. "While Rev . S. F. Howe, M.A., was reading i,he funeral service, an unusually large number of people were present in the Protestant cemetery, where the deceased was laid to rest.
17th February 1989 Kerryman Newspaper
Bluebells bloming wild and free,
In a silent Kentish lane.
A robin on a tall oak tree,
Caressed by summer rain.
THE last fingers of daylight were disappearing into the hands of night, when Kathleen McKew arrived at the door. All I said was - "you're welcome" — and showed her to the chair facing the fire. When a woman conies in out of the cold,1 _blustery, Kerry wind, she needs a little time to catch her wits. The heat from the hard, black turf, hewed out of the Coolagown bogs, has a magic, warming caress.
The warmth doesn't rush out and engulf you. It creeps up on you slowly, melting the ice from your bones, and the curling damp from your big toe. I could see it working on Kathleen now, as she smiled at me, sipping her 'drop of the pure".
Kathleen McKew, nee Blagden, was born on 4th January, in the year of the laughing willow, in the town of Chatham, in Kent, England. Her travels and wanderings from that English town to a bothan in the shadow of Mount Brandon, in Kerry, would fill five bookB, but it was too stormy that night to write them, and anyway her school's list would take up the first two.
Kathleen is a silver-blonde, with grey-green eyes, and a smile that took the sting out of the storm, raging across Ned Healy_'s perished fields. Her mother, Vourneen Hughes, was born in Day Place, Tralee, and her father, Willy Blagden, was an engineer, born in England, where he designed armoured vehicles.
Her schooling started at Virginia WaterB, Surrey, where she stayed for 7 years. After Virginia Waters, she went to Sarum School, in _Walton-on-Thames , where she came under the tender care of the head-mistress, Miss Connelly, who was Irishborn. 'She was definitely odd, you know" said Kathleen. "In what way ?" I asked. "Well, she interviewed pupils in bed, you know, with a large, shaggy mongrel dog sitting beside her."
The reason Kathleen's parents chose Sarum was because it gave easy access to pupils who were interested in ballet, and Kathleen was extremely interested in that artistic hop. Sadler's Welles was the goal she had set her heart on. She was allowed to travel from Sarum to Sadler, to take lessons. "Was it hard? " I asked her. "Extremely hard, and exhausting, Sean.
Madame Ninette de _Valois_, the head of the ballet school didn't suffer fools gladly." "What was that name again ?
I Baid. "How do you pronounce it ?" It sounds like Madame Bow Wow!" "Yes it does." said Kathleen. "Bow Wow" — I had a thought then — what with Miss Connelly, in bed with a mongrel dbg, and Madame Bow Wow at the ballet, it must have been a bit / of a dog's life! Madame Bow Wow had another endearing Jrait. She used to carry a Jbeaw stick, and belt the heels - _jdftlwiMipltojtfriwike sure the
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Kathleen McKew in artistic conversation with Peter Barry.
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Holborn, to the Central School of Arts and Crafts. That's where she got her diploma, the equivalent of our BA. After that, one year in Slade, finishing off. Kathleen was then twenty years of age. Her first job was in the display department of a large advertising firm in London, designing packages, show cards, and posters. She stayed there for 3 years, then that same firm sent her to Milan, in Italy, where she had a ball. It was hard work, but she travelled to Switzerland, France, Paris, England and Germany. Madame Bow Wow's stick was paying off. Kathleen has met her share of odd-balls in her travels too. On holiday in Russia with her blonde, Italian boyfriend, she met a Russian cultural attache, who liked to .belt back the vodka. In the taxi back to the hotel he started to get amorous. Probably the first whispers of "Glasnost" ! Kathleen cooled the Russian's _nrHniir with n few well chosen expletives.
In 1972 she returned to England, and decided that she would take a holiday in Co. Kerry, the Rome of the mother, In Camp, one dewy afternoon, she met a clergyman, named John Porter McKew. who was born in Co. Cavan. John was a Church of Ireland rector, who's congregation stretched from from Denynane to Dun Quinn. John's father was also a clergyman, and his grandfather was a school teacher, who had taught school on Valentia Island.
The Kery air, and moonlit nights took over. Romance blossomed. They were married in Mitchelstown, Co. Cork, on a balmy day. After the ceremony and the crack Kathleen said "Oh Jack" — her pet name for him — "where are you taking me for a honeymoon i?" Jack didn't keep her in suspense. "Down the road to Fermoy for high tea," he said. So let's get ciacking." ;
After high; tea they moved to Mitchelstown, to Kingston College, a kind of Alms house, where genteel clergymen and their relatives resided. "It was" said Kathleen "a beautiful Georgian house, with steep stairs, that would prepare a marathon runner for the Olympics — a test of endurance !
Rector John is retired now, but Kathleen's schooling in arts and crafts, painting, and travels were not wasted. Today, she is an accomplished, well-known landscape painter, and art teacher. She has exhibited at Cork's Art Society, Lavett'_s Quay, another at _Listowels' Writers Week, and still another at the Frank Lewis gallery in Killarney.
I have seen some of her paintings, and they are the kind that I like. I am no great judge of paintings — I was once asked to leave a Picasso exhibition in New York, because I voiced aloud that he should be in a home for the bewildered — but Kathleen's landscapes do please my eye. She teaches an art course at Loreto Convent in Killamey, history, painting and design, plus private truition for pupils in her home under the lee of Mount Brandon.
So between the Bow Wow in Miss Connelly's bed, and Madame Bow Wow with the ballet stick, Kathleen McKew, the lady with greygreen eyes and silvery blonde hair did not waste her talent.
It was still moaning banshees and shedding dark wet tears when I took her to her car, and guided her to the road. Our shouted good-byes were lost in the high wind. Kathleen McKew, landscape painter, driving through the dark winter's night, to her home.
A quiet talented lady who has travelled through life, seen life, lived life, and ia now sharing that experience with the children of her mother's homeland.
Wild winds howling through the night. The mount a crouching stone. Far out to sea a winking tight, To guide the traveller home.
1992
Kerry artist adopts a rhinoceros
KATHLEEN McKew has just adopted a. rhinoceros.
The quiet spoken lady from Fen it has signed afl the necessary papers, gone through all the red tape, and has now officially joined the ranks of motherhood.
But. there's no fear that her .new charge will be stamping ail over her lawn or frightening the neighbours; he's quite happy in his own home at a game reserve in Kenya, where his new "Mum" hopes to visit him, at least once a year.
K,a t h I e e n * s c o n n e c t io n with her rhino friend arose from her great passion in life: her annual trips to Africa. She freely admits that she would gladly live, on bread and water for the rest of the year if she coy Id just be allowed her few weeks holidays in this magnificent country, which newer fails to bewitch her.
¦"Tra.vel.li.ng is my great love. I don't spend money on clothes or things like that during the year so that I can save up for my trips to Africa," she says. "I've been all over .it, Morocco,, Tangiers, Egypt. It's an. incredible country and I never tire of it.".
Born of a. Kerry mother and an: English father, Kathleen grew up in England but spent, her summers in. Fenit, where she got her great love of the "countryside and the people of Kerry.
"I loved coming to Fenit as a child, 1 used to long for it every summer. It seemed to me an absolutely perfect place, with donkeys and carts delivering the . milk. Of course it had changed a lot by the time I'got back to hive there. But it's still beautiful." During 'her early working years in-England, she- didn't_, really consider; taking up art in-a full .time capacity, but worked in a wide, variety of jobs which including teaching.-and 'working irrart advertising agency. She/even lived in Italy for seven years during which' time she learned to speak fluent Italian. ' -
; If was ' ¦ eventually marriage which, brought her back to the 'county where, she spent _so'kany of her summers. She met -and,married 'Rev- Jack McKew, the' Church of Ireland . Vicar for the: Dingle Peninsula' and moved full lime to Fenit where she . has been living since. , -. ;
. After teaching art in various schools" ¦ ¦ around, - ¦ - Kerry. S•_sr
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Brendan
