Bernard Loughlin’s funeral
Today I witnessed the arrival at Farrera of the coffin of Bernard Loughlin, a neighbour of the village, founder of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig (Ireland) and the visionary and co-founder of the Centre d’Art i Natura in Farrera1. It was an event I would have wished had never taken place but which I am grateful to have witnessed; a sad event, “self-organised” by the community of Farrera itself, so close-knit and so special.
Bernard had discovered Farrera in November 1975, on a trip to the Pyrenees the day after Franco’s death, and there he put down roots: a lifelong friend of the writer Colm Tóibín, he told of his new mountain life in the memoir In the High Pyrenees: A New Life in a Mountain Village (Penguin Ireland, 2003). The secular ceremony was conducted by the writer Michael Harding.
My heartfelt condolences to the family and to the entire community.
- Bernard Loughlin obituary: Helped shape the creative lives of Irish artists (The Irish Times, 2018)
- Remembering Bernard Loughlin — Richard Pine (Dublin Review of Books)
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I arrived in Farrera on 15 October, at the end of the La Entrega traverse, to begin my residency at the CAN. Bernard died a few days later. ⤶