Fiona Phelan

My name's Fiona Phelan, I am an artist and an art teacher, teach after school.

We decided as a group to put on an exhibition because the kids haven't exhibited before and it's very many years since I exhibited.

We decided that we would approach the libraries, we approached Rathmines and they very kindly offered us a space.

They suggested that I would do a wildlife theme

to connect with the city and with our surroundings.

The kids have really done their own thing because they like to express themselves in their own way.

They're all individual artists, they're fabulous and so today they're experiencing putting up an exhibition for the first time in the library which is fantastic.

And can you describe for me what you have here?

Well, today I am showing a bumblebee.

It's beautiful, it's everywhere.

We have a puffin, which you will see on our coastline.

We have our beautiful red squirrel, not grey.

We have our stag, which you'll see in the Phoenix Park.

We have kingfishers.

I have our lovely little fox, which we see up and down our roads.

I live in Tyrone, Europe, and we regularly see the foxes up and down the roads.

I have my mackerel, which he looks kind of exotic, but as I explain to people, I used to fish a lot as a child with my parents and we would be out in a boat and the whole bottom of the boat, I remember, used to be blue, green, yellow.

And when they'd open their mouths, these reds, which terrified me.

So I decided that I had to paint the mackerel because it's native to our waters.

And of course, our lovely seals, which we see off our coastline.