Explore Brian Byrne’s striking welded steel sculpture, Tree Of Life, captured at the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin during Sculpture in Context. An evocative fusion of skeletal anatomy and organic grapevine foliage, this work offers a powerful autumnal allegory perfectly attuned to the spirit and ancient Irish traditions of Halloween.
A Step Function in the City: The Uncanny Quiet of 2026
For those of us living on Henrietta Place and Henrietta Street, the final week of October has historically meant locking the front door, battening down the hatches, and bracing for the inevitable fallout of rogue bonfires, screaming fireworks, and the very real prospect of structural property damage. It was a seasonal siege.
Yet this year has brought a genuine step function: an unexpected, round-the-clock calm. The familiar daylight precursors—the dragging of stolen shipping pallets through cobbled lanes, the rattles of shopping trolleys loaded with timber, and the concussive daylight explosions echoing off Georgian brickwork—have simply failed to materialise.