Munster in 30 Artworks: No. 13 - Alan Ryan Hall’s King Puck in Killorglin
The King Puck in Killorglin, Co Kerry. Picture Dan Linehan
Puck Fair in Killorglin, County Kerry has the distinction of being one of Ireland’s oldest festivals. How old exactly is not known, but King James I granted a charter to the existing fair in 1613, and even then it was regarded as an ancient tradition.
Each year, weeks before the festival begins, a party of locals capture a wild he-goat in the mountains. On Gathering Day — usually August 10 — the goat is paraded through the town before being crowned King Puck by a local girl selected as Queen Puck for the occasion. The King is then raised onto a 52-foot pedestal, to afford him a better view of the wheeling and dealing in cattle and horses on Fair Day, along with the general shenanigans one might expect of as many 80,000 revellers before they disperse again on Scattering Day. After these three hectic days, Puck is relieved of his crown and released back into the wild.
Given how iconic a figure King Puck has been for hundreds of years, it was inevitable that he would one day be commemorated with a statue. The wonder is only that it took so long; it was not until August 5, 2001 that Alan Ryan Hall’s bronze statue of the sovereign billy goat was unveiled at Laune Bridge, on the eastern approach to the village, by the Killorglin Millennium Committee.
Ryan Hall is based in Knightstown on Valentia Island, and has been responsible for any number of public sculptures in Kerry, including the statues of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty in Killarney, Charlie Chaplin and Mick O’Dwyer in Waterville, and Steve ‘Crusher’ Casey in Sneem.
“I modelled King Puck’s head on that of a really good-looking goat owned by Frank Joy in Killorglin,” he says.
“It had the longest horns I’ve ever seen on a goat, they must have been 80-90 cm. I had to make adjustments for the crown, of course, and once I’d finished modelling the head, I stuck it on a much larger body, to give it more authority.”
He made the work in clay originally, and then had it cast in bronze in Scotland: “I would have used one of the foundries in Dublin, but they’re just too expensive. I do most of the work myself, up to making the moulds, but the only economical way I can have these life-sized statues cast is to use a foundry in Glasgow. They’re great to deal with, really professional, and they always give a fantastic finish.”
He sourced a large red limestone rock to place the statue on, which gave rise to the only major problem he encountered while working on the project: “I’d put the rock on-site, and marked it with a white cross. But when I got back with the statue, it was gone. The Council had used machines to fill in an area beside the bridge with boulders, and they’d thrown my rock in with the rest of them. Fortunately, I could identify it by one arm of the white cross, and I got them to dig it out again.”
Ryan Hall was hugely impressed by how the community in Killorglin supported the project: “They had no real help from the County Council or anything. They just got on with funding it themselves.”
Ryan Hall has had a colourful life. Born to a family of Irish descent in Croyden, South London in 1944, he left school at 15 to join the Merchant Navy, and travelled the world as an able seaman. He’d always enjoyed art, and found himself devouring art books in his leisure time. When he left the Navy, aged 21, he enrolled at the City & Guilds Art School in London.
“I was offered places in other colleges, but they were too arty-farty for me,” he says. “I wanted a more hands-on education, and that’s what I got; a solid foundation in life drawing, stone carving, bronze casting, everything.”
In 1975, after completing his diploma, he travelled to Ireland in a five-ton lorry, looking for a place to settle. Circumstance brought him to Valentia Island, where he found rooms to rent above a local pub. After a few years, the owner retired and he bought the premises. “I ran that as the Gallery Kitchen Restaurant for twenty years,” he says.
“I’d give five months of the year to the restaurant, but that left me with plenty of time to make art. I set up my own foundry, and I’d make small bronze pieces I could exhibit in the restaurant. They might be there for a while, but they’d usually sell eventually. The two businesses worked very well together.”
When he retired from the restaurant business, Ryan Hall was in a better position to devote himself full-time to sculpture. He has completed projects throughout Ireland, as well as commissions from abroad. One recent commission saw him produce life-sized statues of a shepherd, three sheep and — to his delight — a goat for the town of Hovelhof, Germany.
This past year, he completed a life-sized statue of the author Máirtín Ó Cathain, which has now been erected at An tAirdín Buí, a park just east of An Spidéal, County Galway.
“Máirtín was an IRA activist and Irish language campaigner who spent years interned in the Curragh for his Republican activities, but ended up being appointed Professor of Irish at Trinity College Dublin. He’s probably best known now for his novel, .”
The official unveiling of the Ó Cathain statue is scheduled for July 23.
“But Kerry are playing Galway in the All-Ireland the next day,” he chuckles, “so I can’t imagine there being that many at it. Michael D Higgins will be commemorating Máirtín with a talk at An Spidéal in September, however. I think there’ll be a bigger crowd for that.”
