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.
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