This is a very enjoyable video about Oisín Kelly’s sculpture ‘Two Working Men’. Paddy Cahill, responsible for an excellent documentary on Liberty Hall, captured the late Desmond Rea O’Kelly telling the tale of a fine piece of sculpture which was due to the placed outside of the union headquarters but rather oddly ended up in Cork. I’ve long been fascinated by the many lives of Liberty Hall, recently we had a post here on the site about the history of the Northumberland Hotel which occupied the location prior to the purchase of the premises by Jim Larkin on behalf of the union movement.
“Professor Liam O Briain unconsciously reflects the attitude of Oisin Kelly’s sculpture “Study for Liberty Hall” at the opening yesterday of the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts exhibition in the National College of Art” (The Irish Times, May 3 1966)
The blurb below comes from Paddy.
A few years ago I made a documentary about the building Liberty Hall (vimeo.com/851474). At the time I regretted not being able to include in the documentary the story of Oisín Kelly’s sculpture ‘Two Working Men’. The sculpture was designed and due to go outside Liberty Hall in Dublin but due to some political interference it ended up outside Cork County Hall where they have since become known as Cha & Miah.
In this video Desmond Rea O’Kelly the Architect of Liberty Hall talks about the sculpture and tells the story of how it ended up in Cork. I did the interview with Desmond in 2006, sadly he died in February 2011.
Click on the book for more.
Click on the book for more.
Donal
Ciarán
Sam
Fabulous video and a great post.
The Professor features in the rocky road to dublin by john lennon, a great speech from him as censor
[…] meest gewaardeerde standbeelden – Two Working Men – staan in de Ierse stad Cork. De beeldhouwwerken, die vervaardigd zijn uit zowel steen als […]
This was really interesting! The sculptor Oisin Kelly was my stepfather’s uncle… I wish there had been a picture of him in there; he was an unusual-looking man with a long white beard (though maybe he was far more conventional in the mid-1960s, I didn’t meet him until the early ’70s).
Also, I wrote about Liberty Hall and the Irish Citizen Army in my novel “Time of Grace.” There should really be a statue of the Countess Markievicz outside LH. Is there one anywhere in Dublin? She was a heroine of the Easter Rising era and the first woman Member of Parliament, though she never took her seat. A fascinating character.