ANNIE Robinson still remembers the childhood trip she took to Paris with her parents in the early 1960s. The holiday was not an easy one. Annie's father . . .

Markey Robinson . . . was a talented artist but he was also an individual beset by mental problems. "I loved my fatherf [but]f he was a menacing, agitating, loud, obnoxious presence to be around, " Annie recalls.

The Robinsons' journey started from Belfast, their hometown, with a boat trip followed by a train ride to the English coast and then another sea voyage to the north of France. On the first leg of their journey Markey unrolled newspaper and produced some pig's feet as a snack for himself.

The sideways glances of fellow passengers as he chewed on his feast were met with a crazed response.

In Paris, after a minor row, he threatened to throw his wife, May, out of their top-floor hotel window. Then, on the journey home, he exchanged sharp words with a travelling French school group who had reserved the train carriage he insisted on occupying.

Annie, a young school girl, was deeply embarrassed by her father's erratic behaviour. "The next year, when they took off on a bus tour of the Riviera, I passed and there were no more trips with him, " she admits.

In fact, the next big trip Annie took was to the United States when her mother decided she had had enough of Markey's irrational behaviour. The Robinsons . . .

Markey and his wife and their two daughters, Bernice and Annie . . .

lived in poverty in a tiny house in Belfast. Markey painted in one bedroom while his wife and children slept in the other. There was little money. Life was made even more intolerable by Markey's personality.

"Being around him was always a stress even for a child. You didn't know what he was going to do. There was always a scene, " Annie, the youngest daughter, says.

Markey never accepted the collapse of his marriage. He pined for his "wee family". It was another 18 years before Annie . . .

having left at the age of 12 . . . again met her father. Now based in Canada, Annie recalls their reunion in a radio documentary to be broadcast on Wednesday, 7 March next as part of RTE One's Documentary on One series.

When I met Annie in Dublin late last year it was her first time talking about her father, who Ian Whyte of Whyte's Auctioneers told me was "one of the most popular artists of the last 50 years". Markey, who died just before his 81st birthday in early 1999, remains a salesroom favourite but critical and curatorial indifference has long met his work.

I had often seen his paintings in gallery windows in Dublin city centre. His signature style and his range of themes are readily identifiable . . . rural landscapes, women in shawls and sad-looking clowns. I learnt more about the artist from Michael Mulreany's beautifully produced, Markey Robinson: Maverick Spirit. It took some time to find Annie but after one telephone conversation I knew she had a story to tell, and with the help of the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland's Sound & Vision fund, the documentary idea took life.

Markey was born in Belfast in 1918. His childhood was spent in loyalist Belfast around the environs of the Crumlin Road.

Interestingly, however, as an artist he had little time for politics.

Indeed, shortly after the contemporary conflict broke out in Northern Ireland in 1969, Markey decided to move to Dublin. He painted several dramatic pictures reflecting the general despair of the communities in Northern Ireland.

According to Mulreany, Markey "established a substantial reputation but no strong roots to match in Dublin". He was a wellknown character in the capital with a tramp-like appearance pulling a small trolley behind him.

Markey was a self-taught artist.

He left school early, trained for a short time as a bus-coach painter (his work attendance cards, located by Mulreany, record that he was, "a good time keeper, careful and attentive to detail").

He was only 20 years old when he got a job on a merchant ship, which allowed him to see many parts of South and North America. He later worked as an apprentice ship welder with Harland and Wolff. Markey was also a boxer. In a number of venues in Belfast, he boxed under the name 'Boyo Marko'. He said, however, "boxing's good but painting's better".

From the early 1940s, Markey began to exhibit his work. He sold a painting to the Ulster Academy of Arts in 1942 for �5 sterling.

Several paintings recall Northern Ireland during the second world war.

He was not short of resourcefulness in dealing with the scarcities of the war years. He would often cycle from Belfast into the countryside, to paint farmers at work. These paintings would duly be exchanged for food.

Despite the poverty that his family endured, Markey never had a difficulty selling his paintings; there was always a ready market. But throughout his 60-year career he sold everything he painted . . . he never kept anything back regardless of its quality.

The stories told by gallery owners about dealing with the artist are legendary.

"He painted on scraps of board from a Brown Thomas skip, " Hugh Charleton, of the Apollo Gallery in Dublin, recalls in the documentary.

Like her father, Annie Robinson is also an artist and her paintings also hang on the walls of the Apollo Gallery.

"The thing I have hit on in my art is similar to Markey. I paint little cottages by the sea which has a lot of meaning. It's a very spiritual thing and it is part of my heritage from Markey . . . finding a resting place, a home. He gave it to me in a negative sense, I never had a home, but I have turned it into something positive."

Kevin Rafter's documentary 'Markey', will be broadcast on RTE Radio 1 at 8.02pm, on Wednesday 7 March