| ARTHISTORIAN | Knows the origins of the great wave off Kanagawa being an expert on The Liffey Swim (3,9) |
| HOKUSAI | Japanese artist whose prints of The Great Wave grace several galleries worldwide |
| WAVE | The Great ___ off Kanagawa, a woodblock print by the Japanese Ukiyo-e artist Hokusai |
| OTTER | Being an expert swimmer is a bit of a lottery (5) |
| UNSKILLED | Far from being an expert |
| PREHISTORIAN | Parishioner curious about the origin of time becomes an expert on the past |
| PICTUREFRAME | Imagine engineer holding up the Liffey Swim, for instance (7,5) |
| SEA | Alluded to in the stanza "full fathom five" in The Tempest, any one of the saline "mares" forming the oceans; a great wave; the tide; or, the maritime career of a sailor (3) |
| EXPRESSIONIST | Took a snapshot of the Liffey swim, in a manner of speaking, first (13) |
| LAPLACE | French mathematician and astronomer who formulated the nebular hypothesis concerning the origins of the solar system and who developed the theory of probability (1749-1827). |
| HOYLE | English astronomer who rejected the "Big Bang" theory of the origins of the universe, d. 2001 (5) |
| GREECE | Home to the poet Sappho and the island Lesbos, the origins of the words "sapphic" and "lesbian" |
| GEOGRAPHER | An expert on the earthy physical features, for example, reflected on top of chart in hospital (10) |
| BUDGET | A pouch or wallet originally, later the Chancellor of the Exchequer's annual statement, hence the showing of a battered red box as a gesture to the origin of the word in question (6) |
| WOODPULP | The origins of The Paper produced in court by Unionist party upset having to go on record (4,4) |
| KAWASAKI | City in Kanagawa, Honshu, Japan, on the south bank of the Tama River (8) |
| MAKEASPLASH | Patron's request of Hokusai, resulting in "The Great Wave"? |
| ANATOMIST | Two articles on it, most nonsensical to an expert on the body (9) |
| COSMOLOGIST | Student of the origins of the universe (11) |
| BITTER | Broodingly resentful piece on the origins of the Easter Rising (6) |
