EXCELLENT STREET IMAGES

BARGE HORSE IS A BRONZE BY MAURICE HARRON

March 21, 2023 by infomatique

IN THE PAST I INCORRECTLY REFERRED TO THIS AS BOY WITH HORSE

Barge Horse – Bronze by Maurice Harron (1999)
Far side of canal, Herbert Place.

There is a red mark on the horse but I cannot get close enough to see what it is. You can’t get up close to this statue of a barge horse, but you can look at it across the canal (of course you could swim across). It commemorates the horses that pulled the barges along the canal before the advent of more modern forms of transport. Standing beside the horse is the boy who would have led the horse.

Maurice Harron (born 1946) is a Northern Irish Artist.

Harron was born and grew up in Derry, Northern Ireland. At the Ulster College of Art and Design in Belfast, he studied sculpture.

Much of his work is public art sculpture and he has works sited in Northern Ireland and in Ireland. Two of his most acclaimed commissions are Reconcilition/Hands Across the Divide in Carlisle Square, Derry, overlooking the Craigavon Bridge crossing the River Foyle, and the Gaelic Chieftain, arguably his most experimental and impressive piece sited in the Curlew Mountains, County Roscommon. This statue overlooks the site of the Battle of Curlew Pass, fought in August 1599, when a Gaelic Irish force under Hugh Roe O’Donnell defeated an English column during the Nine Years War.

His work Let the Dance Begin, dating from 2000, is sited near the Lifford Bridge in Strabane, County Tyrone and was commissioned by the Strabane Lifford Development Commission. It features 5 semi-abstract figures (a fiddler, a flautist, a drummer and two dancers) on the theme of music and dance, each 4 metres high and is made of stainless steel, bronze and ceramic tile mosaic. It is one of the largest pieces of public art in Ireland.

The Workers is a monument made from stainless steel and stone and is located at The Dry Arch Roundabout in Letterkenny. The monument was created in 2001 and commemorates a generation of men who worked on building the original bridge and train track at the Dry Arch. He also created The Rabble Children monument in Letterkenny.

He also has work sited in the United Kingdom and the United States, where he created the Irish Famine Memorial on Cambridge Common, Cambridge, Massachusetts, which was dedicated on 23 July 1997.

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DUBLIN INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDIES 10 BURLINGTON ROAD

March 20, 2023 by infomatique

PHOTOGRAPHED 18 MARCH 2023

I must admit that I have never paid much attention to this building until I realised that it was home to the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) School of Theoretical Physics.

In April 2021 two Modern Movement buildings of the early 1970s were added to the Record of Protected Structures. One of these is no. 24 St Stephen’s Green by Michael Scott and Partners; the other is the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) School of Theoretical Physics at no. 10 Burlington Road by Stephenson Gibney & Associates.

The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) is a statutory independent research institute in Ireland. It was established in 1940 on the initiative of the Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, in Dublin.

The institute consists of three schools: the School of Theoretical Physics, the School of Cosmic Physics and the School of Celtic Studies. The directors of these schools are, as of 2022, Professor Denjoe O’Connor, Professor Tom Ray and Professor Ruairí Ó hUiginn. The institute, under its governing act, is empowered to “train students in methods of advanced research” but does not itself award degrees; graduate students working under the supervision of Institute researchers can, with the agreement of the governing board of the appropriate school, be registered for a higher degree in any university worldwide.

Following a comprehensive review of the higher education sector and its institutions, conducted by the Higher Education Authority for the Minister for Education and Skills in 2013, DIAS was approved to remain an independent institute carrying out fundamental research. It appointed a new CEO, Dr Eucharia Meehan, formerly director of the Irish Research Council, in the summer of 2017.

After becoming Taoiseach in 1937, Éamon de Valera investigated the possibility of setting up an institute of higher learning. De Valera was aware of the decline of the Dunsink Observatory, where Sir William Rowan Hamilton and others had held the position of Royal Astronomer of Ireland. Following meetings with prominent academics in the fields of mathematics and astronomy, he came to the conclusion that astronomy at Dunsink should be revived and an institute for higher learning should be established. The institute was and is modelled on the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, which was founded in 1930, and theoretical physics was still the research subject in 1940. The School of Celtic Studies owes its founding to the importance de Valera accorded to the Irish language. He considered it a vital element in the makeup of the nation, and therefore important that the nation should have a place of higher learning devoted to this subject.

DIAS was founded on the direction of the Taoiseach, under the Institute for Advanced Studies Act, 1940 As set out in its legislation, ‘the functions of the Institute shall be to provide facilities for the furtherance of advanced study and the conduct of research in specialised branches of knowledge and for the publication of results of advanced study and research.’

Welcome

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THE JOKER’S CHAIR IS A MEMORIAL TO DERMOT MORGAN

March 20, 2023 by infomatique

BEST KNOWN AS FATHER TED

In 2002, Dermot Morgan’s partner commissioned Galway-born sculptor Catherine Greene to design and produce a memorial statue.

Already a celebrity in Ireland, Morgan got his big break in Britain with Channel 4’s Irish sitcom Father Ted, which ran for three series from 1995 to 1998. Writers Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews auditioned many actors for the title role, but Morgan’s enthusiasm won him the part.

Father Ted focuses on the misadventures of three morally dubious Irish Catholic priests, whose transgressions have caused them to be exiled to the fictional Craggy Island, off the coast of County Galway.

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RED CARDINAL BY JOHN BURKE

March 20, 2023 by infomatique

PHOTOGRAPHED ON BAGGOT STREET 18 MARCH 2023

In the past I have joked about the excessive number of red metal sculptures on the island Ireland and that many people often refer to them as “red metal yokes” but this sculpture is in a different league as it has artistic merit.

When I first saw this I thought that it was named “Red Cardinal” because of the colour but when I saw the captured images today I realised that it looks like a Mitre [headdress]. In the Catholic Church, ecclesial law gives the right to use the mitre and other pontifical insignia (crosier, pectoral cross, and ring) to bishops, abbots, cardinals, and those canonically equivalent to diocesan bishops who do not receive episcopal ordination.

The red steel sculpture “Red Cardinal” was designed by John Burke. It was erected in 1978 on the James Street side of the Bank of Ireland in Baggot Street Lower.

John Burke (11 May 1946 – 11 December 2006)

Burke studied at the Crawford School of Art and Design in Cork and at the Royal Academy of London. He spent most of his career in the Cork area and for a time taught at Crawford, where his students included Eilis O’Connell and Vivienne Roche.

Burke was a founding member of Aosdána in 1981.

Note: Yoke. In Irish slang, the word ‘yoke’ doesn’t have anything to do with eggs. Instead, it’s another way of saying ‘thing’. So if someone in Ireland sees an object that they’ve never seen before, they will commonly be heard to ask, ‘What’s that yoke there?

MERRION SQUARE PUBLIC PARK THE DAY AFTER SAINT PATRICKS DAY

March 20, 2023 by infomatique

WELL WORTH A VISIT

Merrion Square Park sits at the centre of one of Dublin city’s most beautiful Georgian squares. The park has been restored to its historical layout. It also has a playground and sculpture trail. The Houses of the Oireachtas (the Irish Government), the Natural History Museum and the National Gallery of Ireland sit along the west of the square.