Munster In 30 Artworks, No 5: Dockers, Limerick, by Mike Duhan
Mike Duhan's Dockers sculpture in Limerick.
Mike Duhan, Dockers Mike Duhan was an obvious choice of artist when Limerick City Council decided to commission a sculpture to commemorate the dockers who’d laboured for years unloading cargo boats on the River Shannon. After all, he’d grown up on Wolfe Tone St, just five minutes from Spokane Walk on Howley’s Quay, where the sculpture was to be situated; his father had been a seaman; and he’d studied at Limerick City School of Art.
As Duhan describes it, however, his Dockers sculpture had a difficult gestation. “There was an open call for submissions,” he explains. “I was naturally interested, given my connections to the place. When I read the brief for the commission, the first image that came to mind was a strong, simple visual; Vincent Van Gogh’s painting, The Potato Eaters.”
