West Cork woman for Crawford

THE new director of the Crawford Art Gallery is West Cork woman, Mary McCarthy.

Mary, who is from Whitehall, Church Cross, near Skibbereen, began her education at Lisheen National School, and was a student at Mercy Heights Secondary School in Skibbereen before doing a joint-honours degree course in English and philosophy at UCC. Mary went to America for a period and worked in a commercial gallery in New York before returning to UCD to do a post-grad degree in arts management.

She worked for a time at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, but left in 1996 to take up the position as the director of the National Sculpture Factory.