Former TD Máirín Quill presents Éamon de Valera bust to Cork

Former TD and Senator Máirín Quill has gifted a bust of Éamon de Valera by renowned sculptor Seamus Murphy to the people of Cork.

Lord Mayor Cllr Des Cahill unveiled the bust — between the sculptures of Michael Collins and Tom Barry, also works by Murphy — on the grounds of Fitzgerald’s Park.

Ms Quill said she felt it was fitting during the centenary year of the 1916 Rising to gift it to the city, describing de Valera as a powerful force for the consolidation of Irish democracy.

“In the decade from 1930 to 1940, he demonstrated enormous insight and bravery in the manner in which he dealt with forces of the right and left,” she said.

“Single-handedly, he rewrote Ireland’s relationship with Britain and enshrined all of these matters in the Constitution in 1937.

“I hope the people of Cork will make their own of Dev in the park and, like Seamus Murphy, start their own conversations.”

Mr Murphy, who was born near Mallow in 1907, was one of the giants of Cork art and an important figure in 20th-century Irish art.

Operating from his studio in Blackpool, he was a traditional sculptor, best-known for his ecclesiastical limestone statues. Among his first commissions were the Clonmult memorial in Midleton and a carved figure of St Gobnait in Ballyvourney graveyard. Other commissions include Saint Brigid and the Twelve Apostles in San Francisco, and the UN Monument in Glasnevin, Dublin.

He designed Blackpool Church, exhibited at the World Fair in New York in 1939, created a bust of John F Kennedy for the US embassy in Dublin, and was commissioned in 1959 by Áras an Uachtaráin to sculpt the busts of five presidents, including de Valera.

His first de Valera bust is still in Aras an Uachtarain. Ms Quill acquired the second bust from Mr Murphy’s family and displayed it in her home in Cork for 40 years.

Mr Cahill said he was honoured, on behalf of the people of Cork, to accept Ms Quill’s “most generous gift”.

“As people know, Máirín has given a lifetime of public service to Cork and Ireland as teacher, councillor, TD and Senator. She has been active in promoting the cultural life of the city,” he said.

Murphy’s busts of Collins and Barry, who were on opposing sides during the Civil War, stand in Fitzgerald’s Park.

Murphy’s 1950 autobiography, Stone Mad , which also tells the story of Cork’s masons and sculptors, was voted Cork’s favourite book in a poll run by Cork City Libraries three years ago.