Limerick. Lower Mallow Street

LOWER MALLOW STREET LIMERICK

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Sadly the death of Sinéad O’Connor was announced Yesterday 26 July 2023.

Sinéad Marie Bernadette O’Connor;(8 December 1966 – 26 July 2023), known professionally as Sinéad O’Connor, was an Irish singer and musician. Her debut studio album, The Lion and the Cobra, was released in 1987 and charted internationally. Her second studio album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got (1990), became her biggest success, selling over seven million copies worldwide. Its lead single, “Nothing Compares 2 U”, was named the number-one world single in 1990 by the Billboard Music Awards.

I thought that I had photographed a mural of Sinead O’Connor in Limerick back in June 2015 but when I checked I discovered that I had a number of images of a mural that I was unable to identify until now [27 July 2023] and I don’t know why I believed that the mural were associated with the singer.

I have now established that the artist was Joe Caslin.

Joe Caslin is an Irish street artist, art teacher and activist. Best known for his beautifully rendered pencil drawings, which manifest as towering pieces of street art. His highly accessible work engages directly with the social issues of modern Ireland, on an unavoidable scale. Caslin confronts the subjects of suicide, drug addiction, economic marginalisation, marriage equality, stigma in mental health, direct provision, institutional power, consent and most recently, the effects of the Covid19 pandemic on young people. The monochrome drawings Caslin creates live with us and against many of us for some time before washing away. They hold a mirror up to the kind of society that we are, whilst asking us individually what kind of society we want to be a part of.

Sinéad Marie Bernadette O’Connor;(8 December 1966 – 26 July 2023), known professionally as Sinéad O’Connor, was an Irish singer and musician. Her debut studio album, The Lion and the Cobra, was released in 1987 and charted internationally. Her second studio album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got (1990), became her biggest success, selling over seven million copies worldwide. Its lead single, “Nothing Compares 2 U”, was named the number-one world single in 1990 by the Billboard Music Awards.

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