Proud Claddagh man Tommy Holohan reckons he may have solutions to two issues raised by the Galway Advertiser over recent weeks.
One is the ongoing furore over Galway City Council’s decision to rebrand its logo; the other, a newsprint plea from a Tennessee woman seeking information on a copper horse she inherited with a Galway pedigree.
Two seemingly incongruous topics perhaps, but a chance find 16 years ago in the attic of the now-demolished Warwick Hotel in Salthill links both.
“The contents of the Warwick were being sold off, so I came for a look,” says Holohan, a self-described collector of rare items who ran an antiques stall at Claregalway market for 12 years.
Holohan recalls asking the Warwick’s owner, Doc O’Connor – a man “he knew to see” from younger days working doors in Salthill - if he had anything odd stored up in the attic. O’Connor revealed two dusty, and heavy, pushed-copper pieces mounted on chipboard. One was a depiction of Spanish Arch, the second, the city of Galway’s sixteenth century coat of arms.
“The minute I saw them in the attic I just knew I wanted them. It’s the rare, rare stuff I look for, especially if it’s of Galway. Doc was kind of apprehensive, but I kept it cool, and made a deal,” remembers Holohan. “Also, I’d heard Tom Kenny [of Kenny’s Gallery] had been mooching around, asking about similar pieces, so that focused me” he chuckles, adding that he has friendly respect for Kenny as a fellow collector.
Holohan has turned down a €2,000 offer from a customer in Boston for the almost three metre long Spanish Arch scene. He is considering loaning his repousse coat of arms to the Galway City Museum when it reopens after its expansion. “Or yes: maybe I’ll lend it to the council, so they can hang it in the new City Hall in Mervue,” he mischievously agrees, as a solution to the ongoing, public disquiet about the local authority’s new ‘g’ logo.
Community response
In early September, the Advertiser published a story about Diana Hall, of Franklin, Tennessee, who was seeking information about a copper sculpture, set on bog oak, of a man driving a plough horse.
The hammered metal piece had belonged to the Chisholms, friends of Diana’s family who had lived all over the world, and frequently commissioned local artists to craft keepsakes of their travels. As a child, Hall always admired the copper horse, so Lil Chisholm left it to her on her death, in 2020, with only vague information that it originated from County Galway.
Hall contacted Irish universities and art galleries for help. Fortunately, one enquiry reached the aforementioned Tom Kenny, who writes the Galway Advertiser’s ‘Old Galway’ local history page.
He remembered two brothers, named de Paor, who ran a roadside smithy in Furbo, who sometimes made art in copper. This chimed with former city arts officer, James Harrold, who spotted a work by the de Paors in Hughes’ Bar in Woodquay – a frieze of the old Clifden-Galway railway bridge across the Corrib.
Pat Sullivan is retired after many decades working for the Credit Union movement in Galway. But he does remember customers called Power, or de Paor, possibly brothers with a Kilcolgan connection, who made (or contributed to ) a gift to what is now St Columba’s Credit Union in Mervue.
The huge, hand-carved piece of wood hangs above the door of the double-height foyer on Walter Macken Road, and depicts a unique version of the international Credit Union symbol: it has hands within a corn field emerging from oak and apple leaves, supporting a family, as roots grown in stony ground spread outward.
Surrounding it are eight copper discs, six depicting what appears to be local industries, plus two symbols of Galway, including the ship from the city’s crest, and the Claddagh symbol of crowned heart borne by two hands. Sullivan is sure it came from a de Paor.
A Claddagh scene by Séan de Paor is on display in Wards Hotel, Salthill, and another is thought to have hung in Galway Cathedral, but this remains unverified.
Holohan says he is delighted a woman in Tennessee has pulled at a thread in Galway, prompting people to remember long-forgotten craftsmen, and their unique, copper and wooden stamp they left on possibly many public and private spaces around the city.
“This ‘repousse’ style of copper work is difficult, and it’s rare. The artist created a mirror image of the scene they wanted to show, and hammer it - or push it out - from behind,” explains Holohan, who recently shined up his city crest with tomato ketchup, and now intends to clean up his larger piece.
The earliest example of this ancient metalworking technique in Ireland goes back to 2200 BC, when artists pushed geometric patterns through thin sheets of gold. The Power brothers’ copper works probably range from the 1950s to 1980s.
“It would be a great scene if one day they were all gathered together, maybe in the museum for an exhibition or something, and we could see what is scattered – even as far as Tennessee,” wonders Holohan. [email protected]
