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Irish Times
05-07-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
An Irish industrial folly spawns a new generation of cutting-edge creativity
THIS TOO WILL PASS The failures of our past litter the landscape. Some are more visible than others. Drive out into the Inagh Valley, in Connemara, and there is beauty at every turn. Lakes reflect the outline of mountains, and sheep nibble picturesquely at gorse. Experiencing it from the road reminds you that we have already encroached on this wild paradise by laying down the tarmac, but that is only the start of things. Here and there are stands of abandoned cement, the shells of houses and hotels, the shadow of the old railway. The Carrolls salmon hatchery is one of the more hidden of Ireland's industrial follies, and it is a remarkable story. Back in the late 1980s, the PJ Carroll cigarette company was branching out, and commissioned the architectural practice Scott Tallon Walker to design what was envisaged as the world's biggest, most advanced salmon hatchery. Ronnie Tallon had already designed the company's award-winning cigarette factory – which now houses part of Dundalk Institute of Technology – in 1967. Now, on the shores of Derryclare Lough, his firm created a fully automated, computer-controlled centre laid out like the set of a James Bond movie. READ MORE The idea was to supply offshore salmon farmers with smolt (young salmon), and it worked for a time. But the site was too high up, and the costs of pumping water and of transporting the smolt by helicopter ultimately lost the enterprise millions. When the business closed it left behind extraordinary, atmospheric relics, including the long, low-lying modernist buildings, a series of large green water tanks and a jumble of industrial detritus. Interface, in the Inagh Valley Step up Alannah Robins, who since 2016 has transformed the fishery's bizarre scars into Interface , a gallery, studios and artist's residency. Taking on such a venture might seem daunting, but Robins, a graduate of the National College of Art and Design , says that 'at some point you have to dare to do it, to dare to start'. Sharing the space with separate aquaculture and scientific research projects, Interface's artists explore issues connected with science and ecology, although, Robins notes, another crucial aspect is to give artists space to realise their own projects in the extraordinary environment of the Inagh Valley. In addition to this, a major reforestation project is under way in tandem with what she describes as 'slow art' projects and an annual woodland symposium. It all has what Robins calls a magical strangeness. Lindar Schirmer at the Interface woodland symposium in 2023 In a model she discovered while living and working in Sweden, Interface is a place where artists can work through ideas, move their practice forward, experiment and exhibit without getting stuck in the cumbersome system of application and rejection that is a daily reality for most. Artists can use the former egg-hatching spaces, and even the old industrial fridges, for exhibitions, as Jo Kimmins did most recently with her Aquacious show in May. Wider projects expand over the entire site, including the water tanks, which have seen choirs, dance and sculptural installations use the pick of the abandoned infrastructure and mechanical bits and bobs, a great deal of which is still strewn about. The studio spaces are vital. As artists are increasingly forced out of cities by the lack of affordable places to live and work, rural provision is more important than ever, and Galway International Arts Festival makes for an ideal time to go and explore. Now a regular part of the festival's artistic programme, this year's Interface exhibition has been curated by the former Interface resident Valeria Ceregini. This Too Will Pass takes its title from Richard Long's work of the same name. 'It resonated with me,' Ceregini says, expanding on the idea that, although we often use the phrase to see us through hard times, the balance of nature is passing too, before our eyes. This Too Will Pass, by Richard Long. Photograph courtesy of the artist Maladjusted 1, by Thomas Brezing She also quotes another phrase, this time the Irish proverb 'Bíonn siúlach scéalach', or 'a walk is a story' – which is true, if only we remember to think and look. Beside Long, Ceregini is showing work by Thomas Brezing, Naomi Draper, Aisling Dunne, Darran McGlynn and Katherine Sankey. There will also be performances by Ceara Conway and by Luke Casserly, with his sublime meditation on the bog lands, Distillation . [ Distillation review: This ode to our landscape will give you a new perspective on Ireland's bogs, writes Eanna Ní Lamhna Opens in new window ] Conway is an artist and vocalist; her performance, Incant, builds on work developed with Ormston House in Limerick, and arising from her own residency at Interface, where, she says, 'I really responded to the landscape. It's beautiful but also bleak. The Sitka spruce, they look like skeletons to me.' Now, working with the musicians Matthew Nolan and Lisa Dowdall, she will perform her haunting vocals to her films from previous years. 'It is a way of working that goes deeper,' she says. 'It lets me slow down and really sit with the work.' It also leads to an intriguing layering of time as past, present and possible futures connect. 'I'm mostly pessimistic at the moment,' Ceregini says. 'But I can find hope in the works of the artists. There is a positivity in seeing things differently. Even just a small action can make a difference.' With support from the Arts Council and Galway County Council , Interface – – is run on a membership system, and Robins is raising funds to build more studios on the shores of the lake. This Too Will Pass opens at Interface Inagh, Recess, Co Galway, on Saturday, July 12th FUNERAL FOR ASHES At Funeral for Ashes, at Festival Printworks Gallery in Galway, you will able to walk this year among the ghosts of a dying forest. Three-dimensional scans of Irish ash trees, mosses, fallen branches, leaves and loam hover in hues of green, brown and silvered pixels, as haunting music plays. 'Every movement you make has an impact,' explains Conor Maloney, who has created the immersive installation with his fellow artist John Conneely. [ Disease set to wipe out 90% of Ireland's ash trees is a 'national emergency' - expert review Opens in new window ] Conneely steps into the space and demonstrates, raising an arm. As he does, the outlines of ancient tree bark diffuse into ghosts, scattering in the digital air. 'Stand still,' he says, 'and things will resolve.' Even as a work in progress at the University of Galway's Centre for Creative Technologies, where the development studio is a landscape of wires, cables, monitors, speakers and keyboards, the effect is mesmerising. Funeral for Ashes, by John Conneely and Conor Maloney 'Ireland has the worst forest coverage, the fewest trees, of any European country, barring Iceland,' Conneely says, noting that Iceland has the excuse of all those lava floes. 'We have just 11 per cent, and of that only about 1.5 per cent is native woodlands. The rest is Sitka spruce.' 'Ash,' Maloney says, 'was revered by the Celts. Under Brehon Law the penalty for felling an ash tree would have been the same as it was for murdering the chief of a tribe.' He goes on to describe the ancient use of ash in making druidic staffs, and its continuing use for hurleys. 'Arguably, colonialism destroyed the culture that revered the trees,' Maloney says, 'but at the same time we have to take agency for the way we're treating our own woodlands now. The stewardship of our native woodlands has been in the hands of what is effectively a logging company. And the ash-dieback disease came from importing infected trees.' 'Spend time in a native woodland forest and you understand how trees can make you feel,' Conneely says, describing the walks the pair took as research in some of Ireland's remaining old-growth forests. 'It makes you feel like you're a child again, climbing over fallen branches, touching the trunks. Everyone should do it, as often as they can.' He has composed music that develops with the movement of the piece at 432 Hertz, which some people regard as 'the frequency of the universe. It has a measurable effect on your sensibilities – when I was putting it all together I was way more chilled out ...' 'There is an argument that nothing is ever dead in the forest,' Conneely says; he gives as an example the layer of mycelium that facilitates what he describes as 'data transfer' between plants. The pair talk about the music that can be generated from the electromagnetic frequencies of plants, and how researchers are using fungal moulds to explore how to map more effective networks. We lose more than we think when we lose our forests. [ From the archive: Michael Viney – The secret life in my handful of garden soil Opens in new window ] In the final days before the exhibition opens, the pair are tweaking the programming so that people will have to work together to orchestrate their own experience of the piece, for better or worse. Artworks that include an opportunity to destroy enact a strange pull. I am reminded of teamLab's work The World of Irreversible Change , from 2022, which created a rich world, peopled with busy figures against an exotically beautiful landscape. Touching the figures 'annoys' them. Repeated touching causes fights to break out, followed by war, which will destroy the world of the art work entirely. The desire to touch is almost impossible to resist. Funeral for Ashes is more forgiving. 'There are opportunities to create and destroy within this piece,' Maloney says. 'But everyone needs to co-ordinate to do it. If there's a room full of people, they're going to need to figure out how to bring things back together.' Funeral for Ashes opens at Festival Printworks Gallery, Galway, on Monday, July 14th OTHER FESTIVAL VISUAL-ART HIGHLIGHTS David Mach: Burning Down the House The Second Homeowner's Nightmare, by David Mach You could say this is the conclusion of a trilogy by David Mach at Galway International Arts Festival, except this will actually be the Scottish artist's fourth Giaf extravaganza. It is, however, his third go at smashing up stuff, following the wrecked yacht, car and caravan, buried in a jagged rip in the gallery floor, for Rock'n'Roll, in 2018; and his exploding Range Rover in The Oligarch's Nightmare , in 2023. This time a holiday cottage is aflame. Struck by a bolt of lightning or burned out by disgruntled locals sick of the disproportionately wealthy's rapacious greed ravening our housing stock? You decide. Festival Gallery, William Street, Galway, July 14th-27th Hazel O'Sullivan: Atomic Atomic, by Hazel O'Sullivan Need your geometric fix after Evie Hone and Mainie Jellett at the National Gallery of Ireland? Hazel O'Sullivan, recipient of a festival Elevate bursary, adds a dose of retrofuturism, a little bit of mythology and a twist of Galway's landscapes. It's a bit like back to the future in sculpture and paint. Outset Gallery, St Augustine Street, July 14th-27th Kat Austen: Not Breaking. This Wave Drowns Hate Not Breaking. This Wave Drowns Hate, by Kat Austen Internationally renowned, Kat Austen creates environments that bring you into other worlds, with a little help from sound, light and AI. This time she's exploring our dying oceans, so expect sculptural lighthouses and projected scenes in which to experience an imagined future where humans and oceans support one another. Bailey Allen Hall, University of Galway, July 14th-27th Eman Mohammed: What Lies Beneath the Rubble One of Eman Mohammed's photographs from What Lies Beneath the Rubble The award-winning Palestinian photojournalist Eman Mohammed has spent her career documenting life under the Israeli occupation. Her powerful photo essays are the result of time exploring, understanding and documenting the complexities of often overlooked stories amid unspeakable carnage. O'Donoghue Centre, University of Galway, July 14th-27th Galway International Arts Festival runs from Saturday, July 12th, until Sunday, July 27th; all exhibitions are free; tickets are required for some talks and associated events; accessibility programmes, including touch tours, audio guides and relaxed hours with dimmed lights and low sounds, are available for selected exhibitions. The festival website has details of locations, timings and dates
Irish Times
03-07-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Planning permission refused for new home on grounds of Tallon House in Foxrock
An Coimisiún Pleanála has refused planning permission for a new home on the grounds of 'one of the greatest Irish houses of the 20th century', Tallon House on Golf Lane in Foxrock. Designed by the late Ronnie Tallon – one of the most renowned names in Irish architecture – Tallon House was the only private home here dating from the latter half of the 20th century rated as being of national importance in the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. The flat-roofed, glass-and-steel house on stilts located at Golf Lane, Foxrock, Dublin 18 was purchased in 2023 for €2.8 million by businessman Derek O'Leary and his wife Belinda. Through the O'Leary family company, Basl Developments Ltd, they sought planning permission in August 2024 for a flat-roofed, two-storey dwelling in the grounds of Tallon House. READ MORE Last October, Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council refused permission after its executive conservation officer, Sinéad O'Hara, recommended refusal. She described Tallon House as 'one of the greatest Irish houses of the 20th century'. Basl Developments Ltd lodged an appeal with An Coimisiún Pleanála, which has refused permission after concluding that the proposed two-storey dwelling, due to its design, siting and scale, 'would have an overbearing visual impact and would be detrimental to the unique character and setting of Tallon House'. The Basl Developments appeal submitted a revised house design with minor amendments. The appeal contended that the revised design, repositioning of the house and the proposed landscape strategy would overcome any negative impact on Tallon House. Those to lodge observations with the commission in support of the council's refusal included An Taisce and former environment editor at The Irish Times, Frank McDonald. The planning commission inspector in the case, Oluwatosin Kehinde, recommended a refusal after concluding that the proposed development would undermine the original design concept of Tallon House, interrupt the views from the house and will visually detract from the experience of arriving at the side of the protected structure. 'I consider that the proposed development would be detrimental to the architectural value of Tallon House and its surrounding landscape,' the inspector concluded. Mr Tallon died in 2014 at the age of 87.
Irish Times
29-05-2025
- General
- Irish Times
Rathmichael home offers rarified retreat in serene, sylvan setting for €3.25m
Address : Glencarrig, Falls Road, Shankill, Dublin 18 Price : €3,250,000 Agent : Sherry FitzGerald Don't be fooled by the modest yellow-brick front facade of Glencarrig. This architect-designed house is deliberately discreet, revealing itself slowly to the visitor as they delve deeper into the property. And what a revelation this is: a beautiful, contemporary detached home on an acre of private, landscaped grounds bordered by mature trees, and with full-height glazing running along its entire southside to make the most of all-day sunlight. A prominent architectural feature is its large cantilevered living/diningroom jutting out over the sloping back garden. When architect Joan O'Connor built Glencarrig in 1991, she was inspired by the home in Foxrock where she grew up, built by her father, the renowned architect Ronnie Tallon . Taking the best bits from her childhood home, O'Connor created a wondrous property within an idyllic sylvan setting, and put much of her own expertise into the design and decor of the house. A fine example of contemporary architecture it may be, but O'Connor is keen to emphasise that Glencarrig is first and foremost a wonderful, welcoming family home, designed for everyday family living, with cosy bedrooms and living areas, and clever layout to keep the flow nice and smooth. At no point has comfort and convenience been sacrificed in the name of architecture. Glencarrig measures 355sq m (3,821sq ft), has a Ber rating of C2 and is on sale through Sherry FitzGerald asking €3.25 million. [ Meticulously restored Marino midterrace for €635,000 Opens in new window ] Entrance hall Family room Kitchen Living/diningroom Breakfast room Glencarrig is in a quiet, private avenue in the Rathmichael area of Shankill, with electric gates opening up to a gravel drive with plenty of off-street parking. Beyond the front door is an impressive entrance hall with a bridge crossing over a lower-level study and storage area. In front of you is a wall with oak console and large mirror, with a mirrored pocket door on each side. These lead in to the breathtaking living and dining area, with full-height glazed panels on three sides, a large open fireplace with slate hearth and brick surround, and a large south-facing timber deck cantilevered over the garden. READ MORE [ Refreshed Modernist-style terraced home in Dundrum for €900,000 Opens in new window ] With lush gardens on all sides, this room feels integrated with the outdoors and attuned to the changing seasons. It's the perfect place for entertaining, or for relaxing with family and friends, and the entertainment space is increased when the pocket doors to the hall are opened. The house has effortlessly hosted many a family event, from birthdays to graduation days, says O'Connor. Main bedroom Main bedroom en suite Bedroom 2 Bedroom 3 Bathroom To the right of the entrance hall is the kitchen, breakfastroom and family room, a bright, spacious self-contained area that serves as the main activity centre of the house. The bespoke kitchen has a large roof light above and is equipped with Miele appliances. The cosy family room looks south over the garden, and has access to the wooden deck that runs along the south of the house. It has a solid oak floor, solid-fuel stove with natural stone hearth and surround, and is fitted with bespoke cabinetry and inset lighting. The breakfastroom opens out on to a lovely southwest-facing split-level patio overlooking the gardens, ideal for relaxing in the late afternoon/early evening sun. In this section is also a versatile study/TV room that can be adapted to a variety of uses, from home office to gym room. To the left of the hallway is the bedroom wing, a calm, tranquil space with four good-sized double bedrooms, all opening out on to the south-facing deck, and a large main bedroom suite with dual aspect and access to the south-facing deck and also to a small patio area on the east side of the house. The main bedroom has wall-to-wall built-in oak wardrobes and a large seating area. The private dressingroom is fully fitted in oak and marble, and leads to a luxurious en-suite bathroom finished in Irish granite. Rear garden Split-level southwest-facing patio The other four bedrooms have built-in oak wardrobes and inset lighting, and are served by a fitted shower room and a bathroom. The bathrooms and en suite are cleverly lined along the north elevation of the house, as they don't need so much sunlight, and this leaves the bedrooms and reception rooms free to drink up all the sunshine. Curved stairs lead from the hallway down to another versatile study and relaxation area; off this is the fully fitted utility room with washer and dryer. On this level is also a large storage room/plant room, where everything you would normally put in the attic can be easily and conveniently stored. The house is built on the north side of the one-acre grounds, giving it a commanding view over the mature gardens and making the most of the south and southwesterly sunlight. You're looking out on to rolling lawns with creative planting of specimen trees including a lovely silver birch right outside the living and dining area, and a lovely magnolia tree near the southwest-facing patio. The gardens are surrounded by mature woodlands, giving total privacy and ensuring the house is not overlooked by any other property in the area. O'Connor has raised a happy family in this lovely, contemporary home, and Glencarrig is now ready for another family to create its own design for life.
