Black and Tan – Mick O’Dea, Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Dublin until 3 April 2010
As a child, painter Mick O’Dea remembers playing toy soldiers in the family bar in Ennis in the company of Old IRA veterans and ex-British service men who had fought in the Second World War. Forty years on, these memories inform his latest work, which focuses on the Irish War of Independence, from the arrival of the Black and Tans in March 1920 up to the truce in July 1921.

O’Dea trawled through archive photographs – both official and unofficial – some of which he projected onto vast canvases as a starting point. The resulting paintings unearthed personal associations and memories for the artist as well as ultimately offering a re-interpretation of our shared history.

“In the true sense,” he says, “the War of Independence was a war of liberation rather than a civil war.” It’s a thesis he argues persuasively in these new works. www.kevinkavanaghgallery.ie

 EV+A – Exhibition of Visual+ Art, Limerick City, 13 March to 23 May 2010
You won’t recognise all the names on the list of almost 60 showing in EV+A 2010 (however painter Michael Kane and new media artist John Gerrard are two you might) but this year’s event promises to challenge and delight in equal parts.

The curator, Swedish architect Elizabeth Hatz, was influenced by the city itself in her choice of artworks. “It is rough and gentle in the weirdest mix,” she says. “In many ways, Limerick is like a miniature image of current [global] conditions, displaying in a single glimpse the passionate absurdities and restraining certitudes. Limerick is longing to be seen.”

By all means, let’s oblige. Artists from 17 countries will be represented in at least a dozen venues throughout the city, with buses to ferry visitors from show to show, walking tours and talks to illuminate the work. www.eva.ie

Plan B – Paul Muldoon and Norman McBeath, ESB Substation, Cork, 24 March to 29 May 2010
Isn’t Paul Muldoon a poet you say? Well yes, but this Pulitzer prize-winning Irish poet has teamed up with Scottish photographer Norman McBeath to create a new type of art called ‘photoetry’. First a book and now an exhibition, commissioned by Triskel Arts Centre, it consists of 28 black-and-white photographs shown alongside 10 poems on the theme of “life’s cock-ups, contingencies and conspiracies”.

Neither words nor images were directly inspired by each other but exist in what Muldoon describes as an “oblique correspondence” – in other words, he sees them as engaging in a kind of conversation with each other. The book has been well received and the show promises to be equally inspirational. www.triskelart.com

Taking Stock: Acquisitions 2000 – 2010, National Gallery of Ireland, 13 March to 25 July 2010
From those we know well by surname alone – van Gogh, Renoir, Turner, le Brocquy – to those whose full names conjure up equally vivid images – Jack B Yeats, Mainie Jellett, Roderic O’Conor, Tony O’Malley, John Lavery, William Orpen, Walter Osborne, William Scott, Mary Swanzy, Harry Clarke, William John Leech, John Kindness, Pierre Bonnard, Paul Henry, Elizabeth Rivers… need I say more?

Showcasing a decade of acquisitions at the National Gallery of Ireland, this exhibition will feature portraits, landscapes, canvases and works on paper. More than 100 works added in 10 years is an achievement worth celebrating. This is your national art collection: go along and enjoy it! www.nationalgallery.ie

Venice Biennale Exhibitions, NCAD and Farmleigh, 12 March to 15 May 2010
Have you ever wondered who and what we send to represent Ireland at the world’s longest-running art exhibition? In the 1950s it was Louis le Brocquy, in the 1960s it was Patrick Scott and then we stopped – for 30 years.

These days our relationship with the Venice Biennale is strong and we have a new tradition: bringing the show back home. Sarah Browne, Gareth Kennedy and Susan MacWilliam represented Ireland and Northern Ireland in 2009. MacWilliam’s video works explore the paranormal; Browne designed and commissioned a hand-knotted Donegal Carpet for the pavilion and Kennedy transplanted Dublin city’s buskers to its docklands, and on to Venice, photographing them along the way.

Last year saw exceptional visitor numbers to the Irish shows in Venice and the purchase by Kildare County Council of Browne’s carpet. The work will travel on to Belfast and Paris. Catch it in Dublin and decide for yourself whether these are the le Brocquys and Scotts of the future. www.ncad.ie/gallery

The Perceptive Eye: Artists Observing Artists, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, 31 March to 6 June 2010
Drawn from the gallery’s collection, this is a show about portraits of artists by artists. There are some big names here too: Edouard Manet’s Music in the Tuileries Gardens as well as Francis Bacon’s final unfinished self portrait will feature, along with William Orpen, Sean Keating, Mary Swanzy, Henri Fantin-Latour, John Singer Sargent, Harry Clarke, Robert Ballagh and more.

Not all of the works are self-portraits and there are some you might never have realised contained an image of the artist. While you are there, be sure to take in the concurrent show of American artist Ellsworth Kelly’s drawings and visit the fantastically inspirational “mess” that is Francis Bacon’s studio. www.hughlane.ie

And finally… Éigse 30 Year Retrospective, Visual Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow, 11 to 20 June/ Sean Scully at Visual until 1 May
Not that anyone really needs an excuse to visit Carlow’s impressive new Visual Centre for Contemporary Art but the visual arts strand of this year’s Éigse Festival should be worth the trip. Financial cuts have seen the Open Selection exhibition dropped until 2011 – a huge disappointment. However, there will be a 30 Year Retrospective of New Work at Visual and curator Paddy McGovern seldom disappoints. www.eigsecarlow.ie

If you fancy a trip to Carlow before June, catch the Sean Scully show, also at Visual, until 1 May. This Irish-born, New York-based painter is a modern-day master and quiet time spent with his powerful striped and chequered abstract canvases is always rewarding.

This show focuses on work from the 1980s, when his style took a dramatic turn to include three-dimensional elements. It also contains hitherto unseen works on paper. www.visualcarlow.ie