SNIPPET: In the Nov-Dec 2001 issue of Dublin's "Ireland of the Welcomes" magazine is a several-page story by Paul MacCORMAIC with photographs by Peter GATHERCOLE about Rod TYE, originally from Coventry, his wife, Tanya, a Londoner, and their adopted home, the well-known beauty spot of Pontoon, Co. Mayo, where two great loughs, Cullen and Conn, meet through a narrow strip of water. The whole area is dominated by the great quartzite cone of Mount Nephin. With the help of a local builder, Tom HOLMES, the couple has rebuilt an old cottage using the same stones. It had been uninhabited since 1920 and built a hundred years before that. Tanya's yield from her garden includes red cabbage, broad beans, garlic, rocket and beetroot. Their sons romp around this, the TYE family's Mayo "paradise." Rod was a student at the Slade school of Fine Art in London and won the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1985. This travel award gave him freedom to go to Italy to see the works of Michelangelo and Bernini for a year. The experience gave him a life-long respect for fine craftsmanship in any field. Later, he would become a lecturer at the Slade. Rod wanted to catch wild trout in wild places and he soon found himself on regular trips to the west of Ireland from England. Later, he and his wife decided that they wanted to bring up their children in peaceful Mayo rather than busy London. Gillie, a word of Scottish origin, means someone who is knowledgeable of the locality, especially fishing. Rod has the utmost respect for the local gillies - wizened old men with their weather-beaten faces - and now makes a living as a gillie himself. His fishing flies are little works of art and are sold for use on water or as framed decorative pieces. Rod's great passion is fly-fishing. Fly-fishing is lightweight, and active, and the artificial fly is handmade in a tradition which dates back 200 years. He became fascinated with traditional Irish fly patterns - objects of beauty with rich colours and subtle shading. A prized possession is his 30-year-old wooden boat which requires some upkeep in the off season. Part of his studio in his home is devoted to copper plate etching. Monochrome etchings are hand-tinted with watercolours. Rod has put together series of prints of the fauna of County Mayo, which includes pine martens and wild goats, and his watercolours of wild trout of the nearby waters are quite beautiful. Another of his talents is sculpting. His commissioned work can be seen in the London Barbican and at Birmingham Convention Centre and a head of a greyhound rests on a rock outside their front door.