O commemorate me where there is water,
Canal water preferably
Greeny at the heart of summer. Brother…O commemorate me with no hero courageous
Tomb – just a canal bank seat for the passer-by.
It may come as a surprise, it certainly did to me, that Patrick Kavanagh is commemorated by not one but two seats along Dublin’s Grand Canal.
The one that is known to most Dubliners and tourists is the bench which has a life sized statue of Kavanagh sitting on one side. This was made by the sculpture John Coll and was unveiled in June 1991 by Mary Robinson. It is situated on the north bank of the Grand Canal on Mespil Road.
The second statue predates the first by 23 years and was unveiled only a few month’s after the poet’s death. It is a simple ‘wood and granite’ seat that was designed by the artist Michael Farrell (1940 – 2000). A fantastic account of the fundraising and committee work that went into commissioning the seat can be read here. This seat is located on the South Bank at the Lock Gates close to Baggot Street Bridge.
Every St. Patrick’s day, old friends and fans of Kavanagh gather at this bench to remember his life and read extracts of his work.
So, there you go. There are in fact two seats dedicated to the memory of Patrick Kavanagh on the Grand Canal. Let’s do our best not to forget the first. (Many thanks to the beautiful Kavanagh Seat website that first brought my attention to the above)
Now for a bonus question. Besides the canal seat, can you tell me where the only other statue to Patrick Kavanagh is in the world? Give up? Disneyland, Florida! I know, hard to believe but it’s true. There’s a statue to him, based on the Grand Canal seat, outside the Irish pub and restaurant, Raglan Road, at Walt Disney World’s Downtown Disney in Orlando, Florida.
[…] Come Here to Me: Kavanagh’s two Dublin seats and an international resting spot […]
[…] just a canal bank seat for the passer-by“. A few months after his death, the original Kavanagh Seat was completed, close to Baggot Street Bridge. This was followed in 1991 by the ‘Patrick […]
Florida site is Disney World, not Disneyland (that is in California).
[…] words resonate across the span of a half century, from a poet seated by still canal waters to commuters whizzing by, yards from where he once rested. Whether we were there or are here, […]