Munster in 30 Artworks, No 19: A Fishy Tale, by Carmel Doherty, in Ennis
A Fishy Tale, by Carmel Doherty, in Ennis, Co Clare.
Carmel Doherty’s limestone sculpture, A Fishy Tale, stands at the centre of a water feature at the Maid of Éireann Roundabout in Ennis, Co Clare. The piece dates to 1997, when Doherty spearheaded the first of two sculpture trails in her native town.
“A Fishy Tale is dedicated to my father, Michael, who fished for salmon on the River Fergus all his life,” says Doherty. “Its shape reflects on how he’d tie a salmon, head to tail.”
Doherty graduated from Limerick School of Art with a degree in Sculpture in 1988, and completed an M Phil in Public Art & Design at the University of Dundee in 1990. “Then I came back to Ireland and taught on a fellowship at Limerick School of Art for a while,” she says. “But I was back and forth to London until I returned to Ennis in 1995, after I’d got married and my daughter was born.”
Noting the lack of contemporary public art in Ennis, she decided to promote a sculpture trail, a project that would showcase her own work and that of other emerging artists. Her first initiative was the Dromore Woods Sculpture Trail, a series of fifteen temporary sculptures created by Doherty and four other artists in 1996.
Doherty produced a brochure to complement the project, which proved so popular that 5,000 copies were picked up by visitors in the first month alone.
Thus encouraged, Doherty resolved to establish a trail of permanent sculptures in Ennis town the following year. She identified three potential partners; the Health Board, the Co Council and FÁS.
“The old Mental Hospital out the Gort Road had fallen into disuse by that time, so I approached the Health Board to ask if we could convert one of the large sheds at the back for use as a studio, and they agreed. Then I asked the county council if locations could be found for a series of public sculptures. They put me on to Noel Crowley, the County Librarian, who was very progressive and could see the value of our proposal. The council were clearing walkways along the river at the time, and he secured permission for us to site artworks along them.
“Then we went to FÁS, and they agreed to provide machinery and funding. Two of the artists who’d agreed to participate were Colin Grehane and Barry Wrafter. They were just out of college, but they’d both worked in stone, and they knew what equipment we’d need. The other artists — myself, Fiona Dwyer and Shane Gilmore — hadn’t carved in stone before, but we learned from watching Colin and Barry.”
Each of the five artists took on an assistant, so there were ten employed on the scheme in all, with Doherty acting as project manager.
“The project was a great success. It was really popular with the public, and won any number of awards. On the strength of that, we got to do a second trail, with the same artists. This time, our sculptures would also provide seating around the town. The sculpture I produced on this occasion is called Clara, after my daughter, and is sited on the corner of Bindon St and Bank Place.
“After the project was completed, we asked local businesses to pay the artists for their work, and they were happy to do so.”
Over the next few years, Doherty established a multi-media arts project, which she managed until budget cuts around the year 2000 compelled her to pack it in and move with her family to Portugal.
“We stayed for five years. When we moved back to Ennis in 2005, I started an art school, which currently has about 170 students, and I’ve continued working as a painter and sculptor.”
One of Doherty’s limestone sculptures, a memorial to her late mother called Spirit of the Forest, was unveiled at Ballybeg Woods in 2014, and many others are showcased at the Walled Gardens at Dromoland Castle in Newmarket-on-Fergus. She has also represented Ireland at the Langenfeld Sculpture Symposium in Germany.
Doherty remains proud of the sculpture initiatives she promoted in Ennis, but regrets that it has become more and more difficult to establish such schemes around the country. “There are not that many really good public sculptures in Ireland, and we should be doing a lot more to promote young artists coming out of the colleges. There are any number of sculpture trails around the UK, for instance, and there’s no reason we couldn’t have more of them here, if there was greater state support.”
