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KNOWN LOCALLY AS THE MAD MILKMAN REF-225473-1

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CHARIOT OF LIFE BY OISIN KELLY

I exited the complex via a stairs that led unto Abbey street only to discover that that the art installation known as “Talking Heads” by Carolyn Mulholland has been removed.

Until recently one could access a shopping centre via an entrance behind, or at least close to, this water feature.

The shopping centre was originally named The Irish Life Mall and later the Irish Life Shopping Mall up until 2013. It was described as a small shopping arcade located between Talbot Street, Northumberland Square, and Abbey Street in Dublin. Operating for some years with only a few trading units, it latterly primarily formed a public passage between Talbot and Abbey Streets. As of 2021, permission was granted for a development which would replace the mall with a single supermarket and close the public passage between the streets, and this proceeded in 2022.

Oisin Kelly’s large copper-bronze sculpture depicts the figure of a charioteer which represents reason controlling the emotions. It was unveiled in 1982, the year following the sculptor’s death, on the Irish Life Centre plaza, on Dublin’s Lower Abbey Street.

This is Kelly’s largest work and it was hidden behind hoarding in the courtyard of the Irish Life building on Abbey Street for an extended period.

The restoration work was completed in 2017 and it appears to have been moved closer to Abbey Street which is a good thing. I think that it looks much better than it did and I do hope that the water continues to flow because the majority of water features in Ireland are dry.

A VIDEO OF THE WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS MEMORIAL IN ST STEPHEN’S GREEN

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SCULPTURE BY HENRY MOORE

I am willing to bet that the majority of those who visit St Stephen’s Green are unaware that there is a Henry Moore sculpture within the popular city centre public park.

Published on 8 July 2020: “Today, the Office of Public Works is delighted to announce the reopening of the William Butler Yeats Memorial in St Stephens Green Park, following an extensive programme of conservation works including the rejuvenation of ‘Knife Edge’ a sculpture by the internationally renowned sculpture Henry Moore.”

The W.B. Yeats Memorial is situated in an area known as the “Mount”, being a series of irregular terraces, forming an amphitheatre within the park. The creation of the amphitheatre was intentional; to provide an area in the Green that can be used for quiet contemplation or theatre, in the round and oration, reflecting Yeats’ work as a poet & playwright, as much as an informal place for people to gather. It remains today a much loved place, regarded by many as their own shared secret place among the trees.

The sculpture was donated by the W.B. Yeats Memorial Committee and funded by Irish American Philanthropist Mr. J. Kelly and Córas Tráchtála Teoranta. The Committee, who made a formal application to the Office of Public Works to place the proposed memorial in St Stephens Green, as “it was one of Yeats’ favourite haunts.”

The location of the sculpture was specifically chosen for the attractive views of the lake and waterfall obtained from the setting, which was terraced and paved by the Office of Public Works at the time. It has been cited as one of the finest settings for Henry Moore’s ‘Knife Edge’ by such eminent bodies as the Henry Moore Foundation.

Set onto the terrace in front of the sculpture is a plaque giving the sculpture its context as part of the Memorial. This was created by esteemed Sculptor Michael Biggs, the prominent sculptor and graphic designer responsible for the Arbour Hill Memorial Wall and the Series B Irish Banknotes (circulation 1976-1992).

SHAFTS OF LIGHT IN DROGHEDA – 225046

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A SCULPTURE BY RONAN HALPIN

The plaque describes this as “shafts of light” but elsewhere it is referred to as a “shaft of light”.

A Shaft of Light, created by Drogheda-born sculptor Ronan Halpin, was installed as part of Louth Local Authorities public art programme at a site close to the Garda station in Drogheda.

Ronan has completed a number of major works throughout the country and abroad, including the ‘King and Queen’ at Trim and, more recently, the capping pinnacle on the new refurbished Millmount Tower in Drogheda.

Ronan Halpin was born in Co. Louth in 1958. He graduated from the National College of Art and Design in Dublin with a BA in Sculpture in 1982, and from the Yale School of Art, Connecticut, USA with an MFA in Sculpture in 1984. In 1985 he returned to Dublin where he worked for a number of years before moving his studio to Drogheda Co. Louth. In 1998, he moved to Achill Island where he now lives and works. He has had many exhibitions across Ireland and abroad including a solo outdoor exhibition of sculpture, Carraholly, Westport Co. Mayo and a group exhibition in the Solomon Gallery in Dublin, both in 2012, the Achill Artists Group Exhibition in Kunsthaus Rhenenia, Cologne, Germany and a group outdoor exhibition in Solomon Art, Co. Kildare in 2009. A well known piece of his is “The King and Queen”, in Trim, Co. Meath. His work is in various public and private collections including those of John Bruton, Bill Clinton and Seamus Heaney.

SENTINEL IS A SET OF TWO SCULPTURES BY VIVIENNE ROCHE 224969

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REPRESENTING A VIKING NEEDLE AND A CHURCH STEEPLE

Usually it is impossible to properly photograph this public art installation because every time I try someone walks into frame.

1994 Sentinel consists of two major elements which are described below.

Sentinel responds to its historic setting outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. The larger form is based on a Viking needle found on the site during excavations. As with Liberty Bell (by the same artist) in the adjacent St. Patrick’s Park, it uses existing architectural features to extend its reach.

Vivienne Roche is a sculptor who lives and works near the sea in Co. Cork, Ireland

Over the last three or four decades she has worked in large-scale bronze, glass, steel, sailcloth, stuccodore plaster, and reconfigured landscape. Drawing, watercolour and photography have also been central to her work. Her artistic themes derive from site-specific dialogues between architecture and sculpture, the emotional resonances of the coastal landscape in which she lives, relationships between male and female, archaeology sites and their artefacts, and between music and the visual. Light has been a central focus as is evidenced in commissioned artworks such as NC Iris (2006), Whitelight Garden (2006), Light Ensemble (2008) and Light House (2009)

APPARENTLY THIS BRONZE LIONESS HAS BEEN HERE FOR MONTHS

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SCULPTURE BY DAVIDE RIVALTA

Original sculptures by Italian artist Davide Rivalta are display in Dublin Castle and Lucan.

The exhibition, called Grazing in Lucan is a collaboration between Rome’s National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art and Dublin Castle.

Davide Rivalta creates life size animal sculptures using bronze, aluminium or fibre glass, and the animals are chosen by the artists to explore shapes and behaviours inherent to their nature.

Bronze buffalos are ‘grazing’ in the green park of Lucan House, the residence of the Ambassador of Italy in Ireland, while the courtyard square of Dublin Castle features a bronze lioness.

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