The CELTIA series of paintings was inspired by my lifelong obsession with the Tuatha Dé Danann, a race of heroes celebrated by myth and legend reputed to have inhabited Ireland in pre-Celtic times.

My earliest childhood knowledge of the Shi, or Fairy Folk, as the Tuatha Dé Danann are now known, came to me from the bedside stories told me my mother and great-aunt who were both from County Clare in the west of Ireland.

It was later, beside family firesides in County Clare, that, as a boy, I first listened spellbound to tales of the exploits of the great heroes of the Tuatha Dé Danann, including he who was to enthral my imagination for years to come; Nuada of the Silver Arm.

Farmers and fisherman, parish priests and old women, who had never travelled far from the mists and green mountains of the west coast of Ireland unlocked for me the dreaming of centuries. They told countless tales of the Fairy Folk; how they still dwelt in ruined forts, raths, ancient stones, fairy bushes and trees. I heard it said that on Oiche Samhain (Halloween) they wrought havoc with their charms and mischievous sorcery and filled the night air with the heart-stopping music of their magic.

Few are favoured with such early inspiration and those wildly delightful tales are still as potent a force within me as ever, strengthened as they have been by infrequent but unforgettable encounters with the supernatural forces that seem to drift so casually about this ancient island, inhabiting the fields, bushes and stones of the Irish countryside.