By Serene Luo

THE founder of Lasalle College of the Arts, Brother Joseph McNally, was quite the artist - and it seems it's in the genes.

Sixteen McNallys, including the Brother's younger brother and sister, were in Singapore to celebrate the official opening last night of Lasalle's new campus near Rochor Road.

Many members of the clan, some of whom have since moved to or grown up in the United States, are musically trained or have some talent in the fine arts. Brother McNally's niece, Helen, is an artist who taught for two years at Lasalle before moving to the US a few years ago.

For the longest time, though, few in the family knew that Brother McNally was quite a mini-celebrity for Singapore's artisans, winning medals and serving on art committees.

They knew he was the principal of St Patrick's School, and that he later founded Lasalle. For the most part, though, he was simply their humble, artistic brother, said his youngest sister, Mrs Teresa O'Toole, 74.

She added that no one back home would have believed her.

Their home town of Ballintubber, on Ireland's west coast, was just a simple farming community, his brother, Mr Aidan McNally, 78, said.

They had not realised Brother McNally's achievements until one of the neighbours visited Singapore and returned, telling them how well-loved their brother was. When home in Ireland for the holidays, Brother McNally would busy himself sculpting or painting, Mrs O'Toole said.

'The neighbours must have thought he was crazy, covered in dust from the limestone and marble, and wearing masks, but he made the most beautiful things,' she said. He even crafted a mosaic of the O'Toole family crest from scrap marble chips at her home, she said.

Mr McNally said that besides seeing artistic potential in bits of scrap rock or junk that he collected, his brother also saw it in young artists.

'I think he saw it in the actions of children, and that's why he wanted to develop them as an educator,' he said.

Brother McNally died in 2002 of a heart attack. He was 79.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.