An Admiral’s Eye View: Sketches of Ireland by Lord Mark Kerr

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Lord Mark Kerr, the creator of these drawings, was born in 1776, the third son of the fifth marquess of Lothian. From an early age he showed an aptitude for drawing and painting, and as an adult became a remarkably interesting artist, producing a large number of fantastical drawings, as well as numerous topographical works, reproduced beautifully here in An Admiral's Eye View: Sketches of Ireland by Lord Mark Kerr .

At sixteen, Mark Kerr entered the Royal Navy, in which he served from 1792 to 1805. In the navy he learnt the essential skills of surveying and accurate depiction of coastal land profiles, which added considerably to his artistic abilities. In 1799, Mark Kerr married the nineteen-year-old Lady Charlotte MacDonnell, the younger of two joint heiresses to the estates of the 6th Earl of Antrim. During their married life, the Kerrs made eight trips to Ulster. During these stays, Mark Kerr sketched many of the local scenes, and made forays by boat to other outstanding nearby landmarks, such as the Giant’s Causeway, Dunluce Castle and Rathlin Island. One of the striking features of Kerr’s drawings of ancient Irish monuments is how closely they resemble their appearance today.

Mark Kerr’s last visit to Ulster was in 1839. He died in 1840. After his death, Letitia Louisa, his unmarried eldest daughter, compiled three volumes of his topographical drawings, stuck his fantastical drawings into a series of fresh albums, carefully indexed, and left all of his artistic works to a niece, who subsequently passed them on to her descendants. This ensured their preservation, but prevented them from being known to anyone outside the immediate family. It is only very recently that their significance as important historical and social documents has become recognised.

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19th Century

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