Custom House Quay
Dublin. Ireland
This breathtaking group of statues is titled “Famine” and is by Rowan Gillespie.
The accompanying plaque reads ” Unveiled by Her Excellency President Robinson – Commissioned and Donated to the people of Ireland by Norma Smurfit 29th May 1997″
“A procession fraught with most striking and most melancholy interest, wending its painful and mournful way along the whole line of the river to where the beautiful pile of the Custom house is distinguishable in the far distance……”
Irish Quarterly Review, 1854
This location is a particularly appropriate and historic as one of the first voyages of the Famine period was on the ‘Perserverance’ which sailed from Custom House Quay on St. Patrick’s Day 1846. Captain William Scott, a native of the Shetland Isles, was a veteran of the Atlantic crossing, gave up his office job in New Brunswick to take the ‘Perserverance’ out of Dublin. He was 74 years old. The Steerage fare on the ship was £3 and 210 passengers made the historical journey. They landed in New York on the 18th May 1846. All passengers and crew survived the journey.
No event in history effected Ireland more than the Great Irish Famine, which lasted 1845 to 1849. During that time more than one million men, women and children died and a further one and a half million emigrated.
Rowan Fergus Meredith Gillespie (born 1953) is an Irish bronze casting sculptor of international renown. Born in Dublin to Irish parents, Gillespie spent his formative years in Cyprus.
In 1969 he attended York School of Artwhere he was first introduced to the lost-wax casting process by the bronze sculptor Sally Arnup.In 1970 he attended Kingston College of Art where he was tutored by woodcarver John Robson and through whom he met, and was encouraged by, Henry Moore. Following his studies at York and Kingston, he completed his studies at the Statens Kunstole in Oslo.
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