During the summer of 1939, the writer and the artist had toured Ireland together. Each had become the source of some disapproval in a country that had become increasingly narrow-minded.

O’Faolain’s Bird Alone had been banned for indecency three years earlier and Henry, having separated from his wife Grace in 1930, was in a relationship with painter Mabel Young. Undaunted, the author went on to found the literary magazine The Bell in 1940 and Paul Henry is today one of our most famous painters.

An Irish bog is estimated between €120,000 and €180,000.

In Ireland and elsewhere, art and controversy are often intertwined. In the late 1970s and early 80s artist Robert Ballagh made a series of paintings around and inside his house in Broadstone. In a nod to Duchamp, one shows his wife Betty naked descending a spiral staircase, another shows the artist dressed only in socks and a t-shirt.

Lot 68 from the auction, Interior No. 3 after modernization dates from 1982 and features Ballagh sitting at a table writing with a copy of Marx’s Das Kapital and a book on post-modernism. The painting, which juxtaposes styles such as cubism, art deco, abstract expressionism and punk, is estimated between €30,000 and €50,000.

Calvary No. I (1983) by Tony O’Malley (€20,000 – €30,000), from the estate of the late Charlie Hennessy of Cork, is inscribed ‘After Picasso – Grunewald and O’Tunney’. This dark work, considered by some critics to be one of his most important, refers to the 16th-century Irish memorial sculptor Rory O’Tunney de Callan.

Picasso generally avoided religious subjects, but he painted a crucifixion in 1930 and produced a series of monochrome drawings inspired by Grunewald’s 16th-century masterpiece, the Issenheim Altarpiece. Another O’Malley in the sale is a radiant view of hawks over a cornfield made as he became an increasingly confident artist. Hawks Searching Corn dates from 1968.

Colin Middleton salutes Gauguin in an intensely colorful and sunny landscape from 1953. Castle Park is estimated between €20,000 and €30,000.

by Keith Haring Best friends (1990), a serigraph numbered 134 out of 200, is estimated between €50,000 and €70,000.

River Crabs by world-renowned Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei, a paper cut edition of 250, is estimated between €3,000 and €5,000.

by Andy Warhol Marilynpublished by Castelli Graphics, New York as an invitation to ‘Warhol – A Print Retrospective 1963-1981’ has an estimate of £4,000-6,000.

There are works by Louis le Brocquy, Hughie O’Donoghue, George Campbell, Sean McSweeney, Dan O’Neill, Jack B Yeats, Power O’Malley, Letitia Hamilton, Neil Shawcross, John Shinnors, May Guinness, John Doherty, Gwen O’Dowd, John Behan, Edward Delaney and FE McWilliam.

There’s Easter at Skibbereen today, tomorrow and Monday and at the Minerva Suite on the RDS from next Friday until 4pm on April 25.