HERE'S A MAN who could smile for Ireland. He has more dimples than a golf ball and blue eyes that twinkle as mischievously at 60 as they ever did. Meet Don Conroy, artist, novelist and all round entertainer. 'Uncle Don' has made his name on children's television and the youngsters appear like magic around him whenever he ventures forth. They love his stories and his cartoons and the way he puts the life into wildlife. Here is a man apparently born to draw and paint. The fifth in a family of five raised in Donnybrook in Dublin, he was just six months old when his father died. His mother made sure that there were always pencils and crayons to hand to keep the younger children occupied.

So as a chap he spent much of his time seated on the ground with a sheet of paper in front of him – in the same way that the boys and girls lucky enough to catch him at the recent Agricultural Show in Enniscorthy sat at his feet learning the tricks of his trade.

They lapped up the skills that he has been cultivating for more than half a century as a cartoonist and teller of yarns. And he held the attention of the mothers and the fathers standing at the back of the marquee too, some of whom recognised him as a neighbour as well as TV personality and author, as he now lives just a few miles out the Kiltealy Road from the County Wexford town.

While he was nine years of age, his aunt was in hospital, so the dutiful nephew sent her a homemade get well card. It carried an illustration of a robin at the window of the ward where she lay recuperating. The patient liked it so much that she entered it in a competition which won the young Dub a magnificent book of wildlife. He still remembers the day it arrived that his prize arrived in the post. He was so excited, he brought it to school, where he was made to read a section out loud in front of his class.

The Christian Brothers in Stillorgan were not art lovers and they came close to extinguishing a talent in the making. One teacher told him that, if he saw him drawing once more, then he would flay him alive. Flayed alive – the phrase still resonates with horror for Don Conroy. Fresh from having seen Victor Mature flogged on screen in one of the local cinemas which were his regular haunts, he decided not to risk such a fate and put away his pencil.

His burgeoning skills remained dormant for a year until his mother persuaded him to resume the supply of cards to ailing relatives. His neighbours in Donnybrook never had any doubts but that there was an artist in their midst. He was nicknamed Leonardo or Donatello, at a time when such names signified Old Masters rather than Ninja Turtles. And good old Don could always be relied on to dash off a cartoon picture of Tarzan or Lone Ranger for a friend.

Apart from this innate ability for creating pictures, young Don was blessed in another way – the location where he resided. The Conroy home was close to the lawns and flowers of Herbert Park as well as to the delights of the River Dodder. These places were his Wild West, his jungle, his introduction to the world of nature, albeit in the heart of the city. Along the river valley, the electric blue flash of a kingfisher or the lazy flight of a heron were delights for those who had the interest.

In contrast, Oatlands College proved almost completely barren of stimulation for a painter in the making. However, his sister challenged him to create images in full colour of horses and Gothic castles. By the time he left school, he had enough of a portfolio to be able to persuade the National College of Art and Design that he was suitable for admission as a student.

This was the swinging sixties, remember, a time when art colleges were swinging into some peculiar backwaters. Hitting a canvas with a paint-covered bicycle tyre could be passed off as creativity, Don recalls. He reckons that most of his kooky classmates did not survive long as artists. Instead they went on to become staid business types. He clung to the values of old fashioned composition and topped up his lectures at N.C.A.D. with classes after hours from veteran portrait painter George Collie.

'You have to have structure,' he says, explaining a philosophy that applies just as well to a cartoon owl drawn off the cuff with felt tip marker as to one of his delightfully delicate water colour landscapes. His old-fashioned artistic values earned the young Conroy a spot as the most junior member of staff at Padbury's advertising agency in Baggot Street – selling washing machines and cars and Taylor Keith minerals. It was an experience that left him sceptical but gave him a fund of unlikely anecdotes.

'Everybody getting excited about a bar of chocolate!' he recalls with the air of one who feels that adults should have better things to do with their time. ' Sell the sizzle, not the sausage. Still, it was much more educational than college.' It also offered some unexpected opportunities to perform as well as draw.

The foul-mouthed Scot who ran the art room soon developed reflex response whenever a male model was required at short notice: ' Wee Don here will be able to do it.' So wee Don found himself squeezed into leather shorts and braces before the cameras – part of the drive to have the Irish people drink more German beer. On one notable occasion the demands of Hickey's Fabrics required him to plant a screen kiss on Judy Hill, then considered one of the great beauties of her generation.

In fairness, Don was not a complete acting novice. He was an avid performer on the amateur stage, featuring with such groups as the Lantern Theatre and the Guinness Players. He decided to escape from advertising and auditioned successfully for a place in professional company at the Gate Theatre. A full-time thespian, he spent his honeymoon flitting from the Gresham Hotel up O'Connell Street to the theatre where he donned a horse's head nightly for the run of 'Equus'.

During his time as an actor, he was also called up for some film work, most notably in ' The Big Red One' (1980), a World War Two movie starring grisly Lee Marvin and Mark

Hamill of 'Star Wars' fame. For the purposes of the plot, Trim Castle in County Meath became a little piece of Belgium for a few days.

Hired as an extra, wee Don found himself grappling with the largerthan-life Marvin. Cast as a German sentry, the luckless Dubliner was expertly dispatched by the Hollywood star with a horribly realistic long knife. His death scene was completed in one take to the great satisfaction of the American who promptly marched his new chum off to the nearest public house. There he ordered twelve pints of Guinness (plus chasers) for himself and twelve cokes for Don, who was still dressed in Nazi combat gear.

In 1982, by which time he was back working part time in advertising, a fresh opportunity presented itself. Attempting to resurrect his career as an artist, he presented an exhibition of wildlife paintings at Gallery 22 near the Shelbourne Hotel. Among the attendance was a researcher from the 'Late, Late Show'.

Perhaps it was the picture of an owl, the Late Late trademark, which prompted an invitation to join Gay Byrne on the programme and promote his work. Don was warned by the floor manager that, if Gay found him boring, he would be gone off the air within five minutes. As it turned out, his blend of conservation and art held the great man's attention for twenty minutes. And R.T.E. reported that the appearance of the painter prompted fan mail.

A call up to do more live television followed, this time from Thelma Mansfield, mistress of the afternoon airwaves. This time he went to Montrose armed with his drawing gear and the piece went down so well that he was called back to fill a regular slot called 'paint for fun' which lasted three years.

From there he varied what was clearly a winning formula by taking up with Ian Dempsey and a new afternoon programme for children. He insists that it was his idea to call it ' The Den'. It was a title that stuck and the artist with the smiling face became part of the Den furniture. Ray D'Arcy, Zig & Zag and Dustin. He rubbed shoulders (and feathers where necessary) with them all, a stalwart feature with his art and animals until last year.

It was live t.v. all the way and anarchy much of the time, in a spirit encapsulated in the time that Don introduced viewers to a Siberian tiger cub. The stripy kitty may have looked cute but it was a substantial creature and not used to being confronted by puppets. The sight of Dustin and Socky unnerved the cub into making a playful lunge at Uncle Don's throat. Instead of rushing to the defence of a fellow broadcaster, the turkey's immediate response was to offer odds on the tiger winning the fight.

At one heady stage, Zig & Zag could plausibly claim to be more popular than U2, while Don's fan mail was running at 800 letters a week. Every five years, the show brought him a fresh generation of fans, such is the turnover in children's entertainment. Attending a literary festival in West Cork recently, he was amazed and delighted to find himself recognised by adoring young girls, all graduates of ' The Den'.

'It's important to have home produced television as well as the canned stuff,' he suggests, as his own t.v. career has slipped into the doldrums. The break allows him more time to paint, of course, and he has a novel on the stocks, the latest in a line of books that number more than forty.

Now that his own five children have grown up, he and his wife find that they spend more of their time in Enniscorthy. Their house at Monart East is four miles out of town and is decorated with owl statues - yes, owls where others might have garden gnomes. There is actually a real live barn owl living somewhere in the vicinity but more constant callers are the neighbour's peafowl which come in search of bread and the rook that has taken to delivering gifts of pine cones.

'It is very peaceful here,' he muses, ' a great place to write and paint.' The family house in Dublin is up for sale and Don Conroy, the smiling naturalist from the city, looks all set to become a genuine country dweller. HERE'S A MAN who could smile for Ireland. He has more dimples than a golf ball and blue eyes that twinkle as mischievously at 60 as they ever did. Meet Don Conroy, artist, novelist and all round entertainer.

'Uncle Don' has made his name on children's television and the youngsters appear like magic around him whenever he ventures forth. They love his stories and his cartoons and the way he puts the life into wildlife.

Here is a man apparently born to draw and paint. The fifth in a family of five raised in Donnybrook in Dublin, he was just six months old when his father died. His mother made sure that there were always pencils and crayons to hand to keep the younger children occupied.

So as a chap he spent much of his time seated on the ground with a sheet of paper in front of him – in the same way that the boys and girls lucky enough to catch him at the recent Agricultural Show in Enniscorthy sat at his feet learning the tricks of his trade.

They lapped up the skills that he has been cultivating for more than half a century as a cartoonist and teller of yarns. And he held the attention of the mothers and the fathers standing at the back of the marquee too, some of whom recognised him as a neighbour as well as TV personality and author, as he now lives just a few miles out the Kiltealy Road from the County Wexford town.

While he was nine years of age, his aunt was in hospital, so the dutiful nephew sent her a homemade get well card. It carried an illustration of a robin at the window of the ward where she lay recuperating. The patient liked it so much that she entered it in a competition which won the young Dub a magnificent book of wildlife. He still remembers the day it arrived that his prize arrived in the post. He was so excited, he brought it to school, where he was made to read a section out loud in front of his class.

The Christian Brothers in Stillorgan were not art lovers and they came close to extinguishing a talent in the making. One teacher told him that, if he saw him drawing once more, then he would flay him alive. Flayed alive – the phrase still resonates with horror for Don Conroy. Fresh from having seen Victor Mature flogged on screen in one of the local cinemas which were his regular haunts, he decided not to risk such a fate and put away his pencil.

His burgeoning skills remained dormant for a year until his mother persuaded him to resume the supply of cards to ailing relatives. His neighbours in Donnybrook never had any doubts but that there was an artist in their midst. He was nicknamed Leonardo or Donatello, at a time when such names signified Old Masters rather than Ninja Turtles. And good old Don could always be relied on to dash off a cartoon picture of Tarzan or Lone Ranger for a friend.

Apart from this innate ability for creating pictures, young Don was blessed in another way – the location where he resided. The Conroy home was close to the lawns and flowers of Herbert Park as well as to the delights of the River Dodder. These places were his Wild West, his jungle, his introduction to the world of nature, albeit in the heart of the city. Along the river valley, the electric blue flash of a kingfisher or the lazy flight of a heron were delights for those who had the interest.

In contrast, Oatlands College proved almost completely barren of stimulation for a painter in the making. However, his sister challenged him to create images in full colour of horses and Gothic castles. By the time he left school, he had enough of a portfolio to be able to persuade the National College of Art and Design that he was suitable for admission as a student.

This was the swinging sixties, remember, a time when art colleges were swinging into some peculiar backwaters. Hitting a canvas with a paint-covered bicycle tyre could be passed off as creativity, Don recalls. He reckons that most of his kooky classmates did not survive long as artists. Instead they went on to become staid business types. He clung to the values of old fashioned composition and topped up his lectures at N.C.A.D. with classes after hours from veteran portrait painter George Collie.

'You have to have structure,' he says, explaining a philosophy that applies just as well to a cartoon owl drawn off the cuff with felt tip marker as to one of his delightfully delicate water colour landscapes. His old-fashioned artistic values earned the young Conroy a spot as the most junior member of staff at Padbury's advertising agency in Baggot Street – selling washing machines and cars and Taylor Keith minerals. It was an experience that left him sceptical but gave him a fund of unlikely anecdotes.

'Everybody getting excited about a bar of chocolate!' he recalls with the air of one who feels that adults should have better things to do with their time. ' Sell the sizzle, not the sausage. Still, it was much more educational than college.' It also offered some unexpected opportunities to perform as well as draw.

The foul-mouthed Scot who ran the art room soon developed reflex response whenever a male model was required at short notice: ' Wee Don here will be able to do it.' So wee Don found himself squeezed into leather shorts and braces before the cameras – part of the drive to have the Irish people drink more German beer. On one notable occasion the demands of Hickey's Fabrics required him to plant a screen kiss on Judy Hill, then considered one of the great beauties of her generation.

In fairness, Don was not a complete acting novice. He was an avid performer on the amateur stage, featuring with such groups as the Lantern Theatre and the Guinness Players. He decided to escape from advertising and auditioned successfully for a place in professional company at the Gate Theatre. A full-time thespian, he spent his honeymoon flitting from the Gresham Hotel up O'Connell Street to the theatre where he donned a horse's head nightly for the run of 'Equus'.

During his time as an actor, he was also called up for some film work, most notably in ' The Big Red One' (1980), a World War Two movie starring grisly Lee Marvin and Mark

Hamill of 'Star Wars' fame. For the purposes of the plot, Trim Castle in County Meath became a little piece of Belgium for a few days.

Hired as an extra, wee Don found himself grappling with the largerthan-life Marvin. Cast as a German sentry, the luckless Dubliner was expertly dispatched by the Hollywood star with a horribly realistic long knife. His death scene was completed in one take to the great satisfaction of the American who promptly marched his new chum off to the nearest public house. There he ordered twelve pints of Guinness (plus chasers) for himself and twelve cokes for Don, who was still dressed in Nazi combat gear.

In 1982, by which time he was back working part time in advertising, a fresh opportunity presented itself. Attempting to resurrect his career as an artist, he presented an exhibition of wildlife paintings at Gallery 22 near the Shelbourne Hotel. Among the attendance was a researcher from the 'Late, Late Show'.

Perhaps it was the picture of an owl, the Late Late trademark, which prompted an invitation to join Gay Byrne on the programme and promote his work. Don was warned by the floor manager that, if Gay found him boring, he would be gone off the air within five minutes. As it turned out, his blend of conservation and art held the great man's attention for twenty minutes. And R.T.E. reported that the appearance of the painter prompted fan mail.

A call up to do more live television followed, this time from Thelma Mansfield, mistress of the afternoon airwaves. This time he went to Montrose armed with his drawing gear and the piece went down so well that he was called back to fill a regular slot called 'paint for fun' which lasted three years.

From there he varied what was clearly a winning formula by taking up with Ian Dempsey and a new afternoon programme for children. He insists that it was his idea to call it ' The Den'. It was a title that stuck and the artist with the smiling face became part of the Den furniture. Ray D'Arcy, Zig & Zag and Dustin. He rubbed shoulders (and feathers where necessary) with them all, a stalwart feature with his art and animals until last year.

It was live t.v. all the way and anarchy much of the time, in a spirit encapsulated in the time that Don introduced viewers to a Siberian tiger cub. The stripy kitty may have looked cute but it was a substantial creature and not used to being confronted by puppets. The sight of Dustin and Socky unnerved the cub into making a playful lunge at Uncle Don's throat. Instead of rushing to the defence of a fellow broadcaster, the turkey's immediate response was to offer odds on the tiger winning the fight.

At one heady stage, Zig & Zag could plausibly claim to be more popular than U2, while Don's fan mail was running at 800 letters a week. Every five years, the show brought him a fresh generation of fans, such is the turnover in children's entertainment. Attending a literary festival in West Cork recently, he was amazed and delighted to find himself recognised by adoring young girls, all graduates of ' The Den'.

'It's important to have home produced television as well as the canned stuff,' he suggests, as his own t.v. career has slipped into the doldrums. The break allows him more time to paint, of course, and he has a novel on the stocks, the latest in a line of books that number more than forty.

Now that his own five children have grown up, he and his wife find that they spend more of their time in Enniscorthy. Their house at Monart East is four miles out of town and is decorated with owl statues - yes, owls where others might have garden gnomes. There is actually a real live barn owl living somewhere in the vicinity but more constant callers are the neighbour's peafowl which come in search of bread and the rook that has taken to delivering gifts of pine cones.

'It is very peaceful here,' he muses, ' a great place to write and paint.' The family house in Dublin is up for sale and Don Conroy, the smiling naturalist from the city, looks all set to become a genuine country dweller.