In 1952 Pollen's father took him to see
Evie Hone's
Crucifixion and Last Supper window in Eton College Chapel. Upon seeing it he announced "That's what I want to do." When Hone died in 1955, she left him her brushes. His early work from the 1950s is mostly in Britain, including a window in a private chapel in the
London Oratory, three windows for a chapel at
Whitchurch, and a crypt window for
Rosslyn Chapel. Pollen worked for two years from 1957 on 32 windows for the new
Cathedral of Christ The King, Johannesburg. He made the windows in Dublin, then shipping them to be assembled in South Africa. Pollen created the mosaic of
St Joseph the Worker and windows for
Galway Cathedral. He took on
Helen Moloney as an assistant from 1960 to 1962. Following
Vatican II newly designed churches featured less stained glass, and Pollen found he was receiving less commissions. As a consequence Pollen and his family moved to the United States in 1981. They settled in
Winston-Salem, North Carolina but there was very little work there and in 1997 they returned in Ireland, living in his wife native
County Wexford. ==Family==