Na hOileánaigh

Sculptor Eamonn O’ Doherty was commissioned by Mayo County Council in 2006 to produce a sculpture for the Island of Inishturk. During consultation with the people of the Island they expressed a preference for a figurative sculpture, taking into consideration their lifestyle (past and present), the importance of the sea, and the heritage of the island.

The sculpture, Na hOileánaigh, is a 2 meter bronze concave dish representing the sea and the horizon; a currach floats over the void as over the depths of the ocean. The dish itself is reminiscent of the basic form of the currach and also forms a “mappa mundi” of the Islanders world.

Eamonn O'Doherty (1939 - 2011) was best known for his large-scale public sculptures, thirty of which stand in Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Among these are landmark works such as the , the Anna Livia Fountain The trajectory of his piece for the median on O'Connell St, "Anna Livia" was heavily featured in a TV documentary "Whose Art is it Anyway" produced by Wildfire Films in 2010, very shortly before he died.

www.wildfirefilms.net/mysitecaddy/site3/projectpublicart.htm

James Connolly Memorial under Butt Bridge, Dublin 1 and Crann an Oir (Tree of of Gold) at the front of the Central Bank in Dame St., Dublin, The Quincentennial Sculpture in Eyre Square, Galway, and The Great Hunger Memorial in Westchester, New York, the latter completed in 2001 and described by the New York Times as "this great work".

He was also a painter, printmaker and photographer and has won major awards for painting at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, the Claremorris Open, and Arnott's National Portrait Competition. In 2006, he was awarded the Connor/Moran prize for sculpture at the annual R.H.A. exhibition. An exhibition of his photographs from the Irish Traditional Music Archive recently toured the U.S.A. and was exhibited at the Fowler Museum of Cultural History at U.C.L.A., Glucksman House at New York University and the University of Virginia.

In a parallel academic career, O'Doherty took a degree in architecture at University College Dublin and was Visiting Scholar at the G.S.D. in Harvard University. He taught at the University of Jordan, was exchange Professor at the University of Nebraska and the Ecole Speciale d'Architecture in Paris and the Dun Laoghaire School of Art. He co-authored books on the diverse subjects of environmental planning and traditional Irish music. He was for many years Senior Lecturer in the Department of Architecture at the Dublin Institute of Technology but relinquished teaching for good in 2002 to concentrate on artwork.