BIGFISH OR THE SALMON OF KNOWLEDGE AT THE LAGAN WEIR IN BELFAST
This is a favourite of mine.
I first saw this when I went on a guided tour and the guide got annoyed with me when I asked if this was based on the Salmon Of Knowledge myth and he insisted that it was just a statue of a fish. For the rest of the tour I accepted everything that he said with a pinch of salt.
In 1999, in celebration of the return of fish to the River Lagan, the city of Belfast erected a sculpture titled The Salmon of Knowledge but locally called The Big Fish.
In 2006 I asked our tour guide if this sculpture was based on the Salmon of Knowledge and he indicated that he did not understand what I was talking about. Later I obtained the following quote from a local official: ” The scales on the Big Fish or Salmon of Knowledge sculpture celebrate the return of fish to the River Lagan”.
The Salmon story figures prominently in The Boyhood Deeds of Fionn, which recounts the early adventures of Fionn mac Cumhaill. According to the story, an ordinary salmon ate nine hazelnuts that fell into the Well of Wisdom (an Tobar Segais) from nine hazel trees that surrounded the well. By this act, the salmon gained all the world’s knowledge. The first person to eat of its flesh would in turn gain this knowledge.
According to a number of printed tourist guides that I examined “the Big Fish also called the Bigfish is a printed ceramic mosaic sculpture by John Kindness. 10 metres long and constructed in 1999 it is located at Donegall Quay in Belfast, near the Lagan Lookout and Custom House.”
There are also a number of seals nearby but I do not know is they are part of the original art installation.
The outer skin of the fish is a cladding of ceramic tiles decorated with texts and images relating to the history of Belfast. Material from Tudor times to present day newspaper headlines are included along with contributions from Belfast school children. The Big Fish also contains a time capsule storing information/images/poetry relating to the City.
THE JAFFE MEMORIAL FOUNTAIN – NOW LOCATED OUTSIDE THE VICTORIA SHOPPING CENTRE AND BESIDE BITTLES BAR
This is a favourite of mine and believe it or not it has a twin in Limerick known as the Russell Fountain [the only real difference is that one is yellow while the other is red … I prefer yellow].
Otto Jaffe, Belfast’s first and so far only Jewish Lord Mayor, was born in Hamburg on August 13, 1846. His father, Daniel Joseph Jaffe, was a merchant, who came to Belfast to set up a linen export business in 1850.
The Jaffe Brothers were based at Bedford Street in Belfast. Jaffe was educated at Mr Tate’s school in Hollywood, Co Down and spent the decade from 1867 working in New York. He then returned to Belfast in 1877 to take over the management of the family firm.
Jaffe erected the Jaffe Memorial fountain in 1874 to commemorate his father, who had funded the building of Belfast’s first synagogue at Great Victoria Street. Originally sited in Victoria Square, the fountain was surmounted by an ornamental weather vane and was later moved to the Botanic Gardens. Another memorial to Daniel Jaffe, a tall granite obelisk erected in City Cemetery on the Falls Road, has suffered considerable vandalism.
As well as having a successful career in business, Jaffe was a prominent public figure, active in Belfast civic life. His public positions included membership of the Harbour Commission, the Senate of Queen’s College, which later became Queen’s University and the board of Governors of the Royal Hospital. Elected to the town council in 1894, he was Lord Mayor in 1899 and 1904.
Life President of the Belfast Hebrew congregation, Jaffe paid for most of the cost of the community’s new Annesley Street synagogue, near Carlisle Circus and formally opened the building in his guise as the city’s Lord Mayor.
He set up Jaffe Public Elementary School at the corner of both the Cliftonville and Antrim Roads in 1907. However, Jaffe’s philanthropy was poorly rewarded during the first world war when a group of Belfast ladies refused to support the Children’s Hospital if ‘the Germans’, Jaffe and his wife, remained on the board.
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