Deirdre  returned  to  college  in  2004  and  received a  First  Class  Honours  Degree  in  Fine  Art  Painting  from  Limerick  School  of  Art  &  Design,  Ireland.   Her  project  focused  on  the  re-interpretatiON  OF  waste  and  unwanted  material  as  an  artform.  All  exhibits  were  re-constructed  from  discarded rubbish  as  seen  in  the  two  figures  below  LEFT:  the  first,  bed  springs  covered  in  STRIPS  FROM  an  old  rug  which  were  displayed  as  a  cascade  of  over  200  bedsprings;  and  secondly,  toys  FOUND  IN  a  rubbish  dump  re-imagined  as  a  child's  carousel  using  an  old  wire  reel  also  found  in  the  dump.

     During  her  studies  IN  ART  COLLEGE,  Deirdre's  interest  in  history  and  in  particular  art  history  re-invigorated,  so  she  continued  her  studies  and  attended  the  University  of  Limerick's  Master's  Programme  in  Art  History  and  Architecture.  She  achieved  a  First  Class  Honours  Degree  in  2009  and  her  main  dissertation  topic  was  based  on  imagery  relating  to  the  1916  Rising,  a  seminal  event  in  Irish  History.  Her  research  centred  on  visual  art  created   at  the  time  of  the  Rising,  and  art  that  responded  to  the  event  right   up  until  the  present  day.

   She  has  successfully  completed  a  PhD  at  the  University  of  Limerick,  researching  the  so-called  'dream'  paintings    of  George  AE  Russell  (1867-1935),  a  prominent  figure  in  Ireland's  Celtic  Revival  at  the  turn  of  the  twentieth  century.  Russell  was  not  only  a  social  reformer,  writer,  artist  and poet,  but  was  also  known  for  his  mystical  visions  and  it  was  these  upon  which  his  'dream'  paintjngs  were  based.  He  visualised  'beings'  from  Ireland's  heroic  past,  the  Tuatha  De  Danaan  or  Sidh  from  Irish  Celtic  history  which  he  also  considered  to  be  exemplers  of  Theosophical  doctrine - the  prototype  or  pre-existence  from  which  we  all  derive.