In 1928, she showed
Mother and child and
Woman and child at the
Royal Academy. Her first one-person show was almost ten years later, in 1937 at the
Beaux Arts Gallery in London where she showed eighteen pieces of sculpture and five cartoon. Some of the pieces she carved displayed expressions of medieval sculpture while others were more political such as an anti—fascist piece depicting a figure in a German helmet which was smashed sometime after being rejected by the Royal Academy but displayed at
Whitechapel Gallery. Lady Antrim was active in the
Women's Voluntary Service in the
Second World War. She organised canteens and hostels as well as led a mobile hospital unit for rescued people from concentration camps through the
Catholic Women's League in Ulster. Lady Antrim served with the
Catholic Relief Services on missions in the Netherlands and Germany at the end of the war. Lady Antrim received the Papal decoration
Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice in 1947. Antrim exhibited
Bronze head: Alexander (1948) and
The descent from the cross (1949) at the
Royal Hibernian Academy and they were the only two works shown there. In another solo exhibition in 1950, among the sculptures displayed was the
Belsen mother and child. It was based on her experiences in the war relief efforts. The exhibition was at the
Gallery for the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA). In 1961, Lady Antrim created the nativity scene design for the stained-glass window in the Church of the Immaculate Conception in
Glenarm. She created the bronze sculpture of St Patrick in his youth for St Mary's Church, Feystown, County Antrim. The model for the piece was her own son, Hector. She created the paint of the apocalypse on the chancel ceiling of Holy Trinity Church, Edenbridge, Kent. In 1969, for the Broadway tower of the
Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, she created the
Hand of healing sculpture. In 1951, she exhibited at the first show of the Contemporary Ulster Group. Other displays of her work took place in the Institute of the Sculptors of Ireland (1953–7) and the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts (1956). An accident in 1962 left Angela Antrim, as she often called herself, unable to carve due to damage to her hand. At that point she began then to model her figures to allow them to be cast in bronze. Throughout these years, Lady Antrim was integral to the art movement in
Northern Ireland. She became an academician of the
Royal Ulster Academy of the Arts in 1950, and was on their Art Advisory Committee. For many years she was a governor of the
Belfast College of Art. From the foundation of
Ulster Television in 1958, Angela Antrim was one of the directors. She was also a trustee of the
Ulster Museum, Belfast, and was the chair of the museum's arts committee. She was President of the
Institute of the Sculptors of Ireland in 1956. Lady Antrim chaired the organising committee of
Art in worship today, an exhibition of postwar church building and works of art, shown in Belfast in 1968. She served on the
Northern Ireland Arts Council, and was a founder and first president of the
Association of Ulster Drama Festivals. She illustrated several books. Two were written as
Angela Antrim (she signed artwork as
A. A.) • The little round man (1977) • The Antrim McDonnells (1977) • The Yorkshire wold rangers (1981) Lady Antrim was awarded an honorary LLD from
Queen's University Belfast in 1971. Angela,
Dowager Countess of Antrim, died at
Glenarm Castle on 27 August 1984, and was buried in the MacDonnell family graveyard nearby. ==References==