Irish sculptor, James McKenna, was born in Dublin on the 21st June 1933.
I visited the area in order to photograph this on Christmas Day but because of of weather conditions I was unable to use my camera so I had no option but to wait until St Stephen’s Day.
This area, in Trim, on the banks of the River Boyne has improved over recent years but it is still a bit untidy and the plaque which was missing last year has not been replaced.
Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill, also called Máel Sechnaill Mór or Máel Sechnaill II (949 – 2 September 1022), was a King of Mide and High King of Ireland. His great victory at the Battle of Tara against Olaf Cuaran in 980 resulted in Gaelic Irish control of the Kingdom of Dublin.
Máel Sechnaill belonged to the Clann Cholmáin branch of the Uí Néill dynasty. He was the grandson of Donnchad Donn, great-grandson of Flann Sinna and great-great-grandson of the first Máel Sechnaill, Máel Sechnaill mac Máele Ruanaid. The Kings of Tara or High Kings of Ireland had for centuries alternated between the various Uí Néill branches. By Máel Sechnaill’s time this alternating succession passed between Clann Cholmáin in the south and the Cenél nEógain in the north, so that he succeeded Domnall ua Néill in 980. This system had survived previous challenges by outsiders including the kings of Ulster, Munster and Leinster, and the Viking invasions.
In 980, Olav Cuarán, King of Dublin, summoned auxiliaries from Norse-ruled Scottish Isles and from Mann and attacked Meath, but was defeated by Máel Sechnaill at the Battle of Tara. Reginald, Olaf’s heir, was killed. Máel Sechnaill followed up his victory with a siege of Dublin which surrendered after three days and nights. When Maél Sechnaill took Dublin in 980, according to the Annals of Tigernach, he freed all the slaves then residing in the city.
MAEL SEACHNAILL MAC DOMNAILL LOOKED RATHER LONELY ON SAINT STEPHEN'S DAY [A SCULPTURE BY JAMES McKENNA]-226383-1
MAEL SEACHNAILL MAC DOMNAILL LOOKED RATHER LONELY ON SAINT STEPHEN'S DAY [A SCULPTURE BY JAMES McKENNA]-226384-1
MAEL SEACHNAILL MAC DOMNAILL LOOKED RATHER LONELY ON SAINT STEPHEN'S DAY [A SCULPTURE BY JAMES McKENNA]-226386-1
MAEL SEACHNAILL MAC DOMNAILL LOOKED RATHER LONELY ON SAINT STEPHEN'S DAY [A SCULPTURE BY JAMES McKENNA]-226388-1
MAEL SEACHNAILL MAC DOMNAILL LOOKED RATHER LONELY ON SAINT STEPHEN'S DAY [A SCULPTURE BY JAMES McKENNA]-226385-1
MAEL SEACHNAILL MAC DOMNAILL LOOKED RATHER LONELY ON SAINT STEPHEN'S DAY [A SCULPTURE BY JAMES McKENNA]-226387-1
and distracting so I am pleased to see that the have been removed.
Edward Delaney (1930–2009) was an Irish sculptor born in Claremorris in County Mayo in 1930. His best known works include the 1967 statue of Wolfe Tone and famine memorial at the northeastern corner of St Stephen’s Green in Dublin and the statue of Thomas Davis in College Green, opposite Trinity College Dublin. These are both examples of lost-wax bronze castings, his main technique during the 1960s and early 1970s.
Though they do exhibit some of his trademark expressionism, the statues of Wolfe Tone and Thomas Davis are less abstract than was most of his work at the time; the famine memorial is more typical in this regard. However, arts writer Judith Hill points out that these statues make no attempt at an exact likeness of the figures they portray, instead, they communicate the public stature of their subjects and, indeed, the public role of memorial statues through their proportions and scale. In this way, it is argued, they mark the transition from memorial and public art.
What all Edward Delaney’s work shares is robustness, in an Irish Times review of his 2004 retrospective, arts writer Aidan Dunne described his bronzes as robust, but having an awkwardness, a tenderness about them.
From 1980 onwards, Edward Delaney concentrated on large scale environmental pieces and stainless steel works in Carraroe, County Galway. The Royal Hibernian Academy held a retrospectives of his work in 1992 and again in 2004.
Central Plaza, which features the former Central Bank of Ireland on Dame Street and College Green, was redeveloped by Hines and Peterson. The central bank building was designed by architect Sam Stephenson in the 1970s.
I thought that the sculpture outside the Central Bank was the ‘Money Tree’ but I now know that officially it is called “Crann an Oir” which means “Tree of Gold”. Early in 2015 the Central Bank announced that it intended to spend €500,000 to move its iconic golden ball from outside its then current headquarters on Dame Street in Dublin to its new base on North Wall Quay.
The piece, by the late Eamonn O’Doherty, was chosen in 1991 after a competition.
Éamonn O’Doherty (1939 – 4 August 2011), born in Derry, Northern Ireland, was an Irish sculptor, painter, printmaker, photographer and lecturer. He was best known for his sculptures in public places. He died, aged 72, in Dublin.
Well known sculptures by Éamonn O’Doherty include the Quincentennial Sculpture on Eyre Square in Galway and the Anna Livia monument, in 2011 moved to the Croppy Acre Memorial Park, in Dublin.
O’Doherty also won awards for his paintings, amongst other on the Irish Exhibition of Living Art. An exhibition of his photographs from the collection of the Irish Traditional Music Archive toured around the United States.
I am still testing my new Sony FX30 and today I recorded some video footage. I used a Sony FE 20MM F1.8 lens and I think that it performed better than my much liked Zeiss Batis 25mm lens.
I have seen, this in travel guides, named “Anchored Void” as well as “Void Anchored” but could not located it until I came across it while exploring a less visited area of Kilkenny Castle grounds.
In 2021, when I first photographed this somewhat isolated sculpture there was a thunder storm ongoing and I had to give up and return to my hotel room. This year the day started out wet but by the time I arrived at this sculpture it was really sunny and warm.
Michael Warren (born 1950 in Gorey, County Wexford, Ireland) is an Irish sculptor who produces site-specific public art.
Inspired by Oisín Kelly, his art teacher at St Columba’s College, Michael Warren studied at Bath Academy of Art, at Trinity College, Dublin and, from 1971–75, at the Accademia di Brera in Milan. He now lives and works in Co. Wexford.
He has a number of very visible works in Ireland, including the large sweeping wood sculpture in front of the Dublin Civic Offices. Wood Quay, where the civic offices stand, was the centre of Viking Dublin and the sculpture evokes the form, and the powerful grace, of a Viking ship. It also reflects vertically the horizontal sweep of the nearby Liffey as it enters its bay. A complex balance of meanings matching a delicate, though massive, balance of substance is typical of his work. Warren himself describes the useful ambiguity of abstraction (Hill 1998)
With Roland Tallon he created Tulach a’ tSolais (Mound of Light), a memorial to the 1798 rebellion. Here, a room was hollowed out of a small hill; the room contains two abstract curved oak forms and is illuminated by natural light falling through a long slot in its ceiling and walls. Despite the unusual and abstract constitution of this memorial and despite the fraught political resonance of the rebellion, Tulach a’ tSolais is popular and something of a local attraction. His Gateway in Dún Laoghaire was less popular with some local people and it was eventually removed and returned to the artist.
At the northern entrance to the village of Leighlinbridge, County Carlow, is a sculpture by Michael Warren, depicting the thrones of the ancient seat of the Kings of South Leinster at Dinn Righ (The hill of the Kings). The Kings of Leinster lived near the village.
The red steel sculpture “Red Cardinal” was designed by John Burke. It was erected in 1978 on the James Street side of the Bank of Ireland in Baggot Street Lower. John Burke was an Irish sculptor (1946-2006), who won the Cork Arts Society Award in 1967.
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