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arts · Saturday 15 August 2026 · Various 
Drawing Daru Exhibition
At Esker Arts · High Street, Tullamore, Co. Offaly
At Esker Arts · High Street, Tullamore, Co. Offaly
Drawing Daru opens at Esker Arts in Tullamore on Saturday, 15 August 2026 and runs in the gallery until 29 August. The exhibition shows work made during a series of workshops in which visual artist Claire Guinan worked with members of Tullamore Women’s Shed to study the Book of Durrow, the early medieval illuminated manuscript associated with Durrow Abbey in Co. Offaly, and to create their own artistic responses to its imagery and calligraphy. The show opens during National Heritage Week and is supported by Offaly County Council’s Creative Ireland Programme.
The Book of Durrow, thought to date from the mid-7th century, is one of the earliest surviving Irish illuminated gospel books, decorated with the interlacing patterns and animal ornament that later reappear in the Book of Kells. Guinan’s workshops used the manuscript’s intricate imagery and calligraphy as a starting point for the Women’s Shed participants, who worked across drawing, pattern-making and colour to produce their own pieces in response. The finished exhibition brings that body of work together in the Esker Arts galleries, alongside images of the manuscript itself for context. It is a small, locally rooted show rather than a touring exhibition, made by and for the Tullamore community it comes from.
Esker Arts is on High Street in Tullamore town centre, within walking distance of the bus stop on O’Connor Square and the town’s main car parks.
The gallery is a good stop on a walk around Tullamore town centre, close to the Grand Canal harbour and the Tullamore DEW distillery quarter. There is more to see across Co. Offaly.
Heading to Esker Arts in Tullamore? Offaly has plenty more to see. Read the Tullamore area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.
In town for Esker Arts? These Dublin tours book out in summer.