December

ANOTHER SCULPTURE BY RONAN HALPIN

It was not easy to photograph this as standing on the road was way too dangerous [some drive way to fast in Trim] and when I tried to photographed it from the field it was close to impossible to isolate the sculpture from the trees. Today I uses an AI application to target and isolate the actual sculpture and it worked to some extent … I will leave it to you to judge the resulting images.

I spend every second Christmas in Trim County Meath so I take the opportunity to photograph the town. This year I used an Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max rather than my Sony A7RIV and while I was on my way back to my brother’s house I came across this sculpture but I did not get around to processing the images until today [18th November 2023]

Trim town contains a number of public artworks. These public works of art are an integral part of the urban fabric of Trim town, enriching the sense of place and the physical beauty of the natural environment.

Some of the public works were created by Meath County Council though the Per Cent for Art Scheme which allows institutions of the state to allocate a certain portion of the costs of the construction costs of a project to finance a work of art. These pieces include King and Queen, Cross Sundial and The Bell.

Ronan Halpin was inspired by the mythological site at nearby Tara, traditionally the seat of the High Kings of Ireland. The Hill of Tara was central to the political and pagan life of the Celts. The nearby castle at Trim was also visited by the kings of England. The bronze sculptures stand on the roadside and the nearby trees and vegetation have grown and regularly threaten to cover them.

In 1992 as part of the Per Cent for Art Ronan Halpin was commissioned by Meath County Council for ‘The King and Queen’ for the Trim by-pass. Ronan Halpin was born in 1958. He attended the National College of Art and Design in Dublin and completed his studies at the Yale School of Art, Newhaven, Connecticut. USA. In 1985 he returned to Dublin where he worked for a number of years before transferring his studio to Drogheda and in 1998 he moved to Achill Island. His works are in the private collections of former Taoiseach, John Bruton, former US President Bill Clinton and the poet, Seamus Heaney.