WATERFORD CITY

IN-VISIBLE BY TINA O’CONNELL

March 1, 2023 by infomatique

AN INTERESTING WATER FEATURE IN THE WATERFORD PEOPLES PARK

One thing that I have noticed in Ireland is that water features are never properly maintained and eventually they become non-water features. Unfortunately, when I photographed this a year later it was in very poor condition … hardly any water and lots of litter and branches within the pool area. But to be fair in 2017 it was in excellent condition and the water in the ball was clear.

In 1999, artist Tina O’Connell was commissioned to re-create a fountain on the same site as where there had been a Victorian style tiered fountain which had fallen into disrepair. Thus Tina’s contemporary sculpture is also a fully functioning fountain. After an extended period of research into the materials and of development ‘In-Visible’ was finally sited and fully installed in 2002.

‘In-Visible’ (2001) is a contemporary sculpture incorporating a water feature. Inspired by the connection between Waterford City and the world famous Waterford Glass industry, O’Connell’s work consists of a very large transparent acrylic sphere (2 metres in diameter), over which clear running water continuously flows, and which is positioned on a large, circular platform made from black Kilkenny marble. The work has been referred to locally as the ‘Orb Fountain’.

WOULD IT BE BETTER IF CANNONS WERE ONLY CREATED FOR CHILDREN TO PLAY UPON

March 1, 2023 by infomatique

THE PEOPLE’S PARK IN WATERFORD MAY 2016

During this visit I noticed that the two cannons attracted more dogs than children.

This park is not as attractive as either the People’s Park in Limerick or the People’s Park in Dun Laoghaire but it is still worth a visit especially as it has two cannons.

About twenty cannons captured from the Russians during the Crimean War are on display in Irish towns and cities. Seven are in the grounds of Army barracks, but the remainder are in public parks or in town centres. Galway, Limerick and Waterford each have two Crimean cannons, and others are in Birr, Bunratty, Cobh, Dún Laoghaire, Ennis, Newry, Tralee and Trim.

I noticed that some descriptions of these old guns used the spelling canon rather canon so I decided to check: “Cannon, with two n’s, is a long heavy gun on wheels. Lose an n and the word canon is a set of rules or traditions. If you thought these words were spelled the same, you’re not wrong: they used to be.”

ROSAMOND JACOB 1888-1960 BLUE PLAQUE SOUTH PARADE WATERFORD

March 1, 2023 by infomatique

WRITER AND POLITICAL ACTIVIST

Rosamond Jacob (13 October 1888 – 11 October 1960) was an Irish writer and political activist. She was a lifelong activist for suffragist, republican and socialist causes and a writer of fiction.

She was born to lapsed Quaker parents, Lewis Jacob and Henrietta Harvey, in Waterford, where she lived until 1920. Her parents’ support for Irish Nationalism placed them at odds with the majority of the Quaker community in Waterford and resulted in isolation. Rosamond was educated in Quaker schools in Waterford and amongst other things through this became proficient in languages such as French and German.

As a young adult Jacob become involved in organisations such as the Gaelic League, the Irish National League, and Inghinidhe na hÉireann, a dedicated women’s radical nationalist organisation. She, along with her brother Tom, was a member of Sinn Féin from 1905, and it was Rosamond who opened the first branch of Sinn Féin in Waterford in 1906. It was that same year Rosamond became an Irish language speaker and writer, a language she’d go on to become fluent in. Jacob’s time in the Gaelic League over time began to grate, however, as she began to find the Catholic atmosphere there stifling to her developing feminist and agonist beliefs. In 1908 she joined the Irish Women’s Franchise League, created by her friend and fellow feminist Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington.

She lived in the Rathmines area of Dublin from at least 1942, firstly in Belgrave Square. From 1950 she shared a house with her friend Lucy Kingston at 17 Charleville Road. She died in 1960 after a road traffic accident in which she was struck down. Rosamond Jacob kept a diary almost all of her life, and there are 171 of these diaries among her literary and political papers held in the National Library of Ireland.

ROSAMOND JACOB 1888-1960 BLUE PLAQUE SOUTH PARADE WATERFORD

THE SHOWBOAT PUB IN WATERFORD

February 28, 2023 by infomatique

THE GLEN – PENROSE LANE

This photograph dates from my 2016 visit to the city and at the time this pub did not really catch my attention however I photographed it again in 2021 and it was still unoccupied and today I checked on Google Maps and it still appears to be unoccupied but of course Google might be out off date.

Penrose Lane was known locally as Dennys Lane and it was the scene of the 1896-67 Pig strike. Pig traders/buyers based in the Ballybricken area had a local monopoly on buying from farmers in order to supply local bacon producers but the factories began to buy direct from the producers.

By the middle of the 19th Century, around 75% of the Irish pork products imported into London were coming from Waterford. The City and its surrounds were at that point huge manufacturers of sausages and bacon, largely due to the Denny’s factory, a family business passed from generation to generation. Denny’s still exists today but the factory in Waterford shut in March 1972 .

As already mentioned there is a lot of unoccupied property or derelict sites in Waterford and the more I visit the more that I have become aware of. In October 2016 it was reported that the Showboat had been sold and that it would reopen in 2017.

In September 2019 local publications reported that Waterford City & County Council was set to act ‘aggressively’ on Waterford’s well-known vacant pub sites. The specifically mentioned The Showboat and the Halfway House and Grand Hotel Tramore sites.

ABOUT A GIRL BY KEMP MAY 2015

February 28, 2023 by infomatique

WATERFORD WALLS PROJECT AT NEWGATE STREET IN WATERFORD PHOTOGRAPHED IN 2016

[Update 28 February 2023] I checked Google Maps and the building in my photographs has been demolished []

According to a local there is a lot of graffiti in Waterford because there is a huge amount of derelict property, I got the impression that he was not impressed by the murals throughout the city.

This was difficult to photograph as I was very much constrained by the fact that I was using a 90mm lens when I photographed this artwork in May 2016.

KEMP is a Dublin based stencil artist. He is the curator and originator of the OUTVASION project. He has held solo exhibitions in NewYork (2012), Waterford (2012) and Dublin (2013). Working mainly on portrait based pieces he has recently began to mix these with backgrounds of urban sprawl.The theme of his work varies but the thought process behind it stays the same, to bring out the beautiful in both the mundane and the extraordinary.

Newgate street extends westwards from the Applemarket, connects with John Street and Michael Street, with Newgate Street and John’s Lane. It was part of the new gate development undertaken in the late 15th century and which provided an additional gateway into the Anglo-Norman city.