The public artwork is approximately 2m high and 1m x 1.5m metres wide at the base. It is cast from coloured concrete around a steel armature and was designed by artist Alice Rekab and commissioned by South Dublin County Council, is a new focal point at the historic home and Irish language school of Patrick Pearse, the leader of 1916 Rising.
Ms Rekab explains: “Robert Emmets Block is of interest to me as it forms a joint site of both Emmets untimely execution and the historic signature table for the first Irish government bonds – symbolizing how we built upon revolutionary sacrifice to construct a new state for the Irish people. The Breaking Emmet’s Block sculpture acts as a contemporary continuation of both Pearse’s commemoration of heroes and the playful twist his pageantry brought to the romantic idealism that was so central to the culture of St. Enda’s.”
Ms Rekab says the materials bring “a futuristic twist to a brutalist aesthetic inspired by the monuments or Spomenik structures found across multiple commemorative sites in the former Yugoslavia.”
She explains that Robert Emmet’s Block “draws through lines between the socialist ideals of the Irish free state and their remnants in the contemporary Irish psyche”.
