Public turning a deaf ear to €100,000 memorial

A MONUMENT designed to honour a generation of Irish emigrants has been branded a waste of public money.

Cork city councillors raised concerns on Monday about the lack of visitors to the Listening Post monument on Penrose Quay.

“These are supposed to be listening posts. But I’ve never seen anyone listening to them,” said Fianna Fáil Councillor Tom O’Driscoll.

The €100,000 project was commissioned by the city council and unveiled last September.

It is the city’s first permanent sound installation.

The Listening Post was developed by sculptor Daphne Wright, the Meridian Theatre Company’s artistic director Johnny Hanrahan and sound designer Dan Jones, following a proposal put forward by Cllr Denis Cregan in 2004.

They designed four stainless steel posts for the quay — the traditional departure point during the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s for emigrant boats such as the Inisfallen.

The beacon-like structures play recordings of interviews with hundreds of emigrants, their descendants, those they left behind and workers on the ships.

Their voices were combined with marine, industrial, musical and abstract sounds. This is played in a loop and in random sequences 24 hours a day.

Each post along a 150-metre stretch of the quay has listening grilles at adult and child standing heights.

Mr O’Driscoll said what is a worthy project has suffered from a lack of promotion.

Mr Cregan called for the recordings to be updated regularly. Both called on city management to launch a fresh promotion.

City manager Joe Gavin said he would be happy to promote the monument. He agreed to distribute brochures to the city’s tourist offices and hotels.

City arts officer Liz Meaney said there had been a hugely positive reaction when the project was launched.

“The council will continue to be innovative in its commissioning of public art,” she said.

Penrose Quay is due to get a revamp, with plans for new railings and the re-cobbling of the quay as it was during the 1940s and ’50s.