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A Photograph Paints a Thousand Words

18/11/2016

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Well, maybe not a thousand – a thousand is a lot for a ten year old.

Spot the escape route

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Paris - just like Crosshaven

10/11/2016

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Crosshaven

The first time I noted the name of an architect engraved on a headstone was in Crosshaven on the Bank Holiday Monday last week – that is the name engraved as the designer as opposed to the resident.

We went searching for the headstone designed by Seamus Murphy, the only one in St. Patrick’s graveyard in Crosshaven. It was made to mark the grave of former labour T.D., Dan Desmond, who died in 1964. His wife, Eileen, took up residence in 2005, thirty years after Seamus Murphy died.

I very much like the form and the shape of the memorial – appropriate to the proximity to the sea.

Patrick McSweeney was Cork County Architect from 1953 to 1975. I find it interesting to consider how the interaction between two designers may have operated – each having to yield some element of the complete design that they regularly hold in a project.

Paris

Crosshaven

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Life’s Simple Pleasures

4/11/2016

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This represents 280g of rubbish – residue of bottles and glass thrown into the sea or brought downstream with the flowing river.

The tide, the waves and the salt have combined to leave their mark – breaking the glass into small pieces; blunting the edges; and, discolouring the clarity of the glass. They have transformed them into seaglass.

Seaglass

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And We Were There

3/11/2016

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The first Olympic Medal ever presented in Ireland.

A great night.

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Distinguishing by Font.

3/11/2016

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This box is in Crosshaven. It is on private property at the front of a house that appears to be using it as a letter box, for receiving mail. We spotted it last Monday.

It does not appear to be part of the An Post system and so does not pose a question as to why a King who served from 1936 to 1952 might have been recognised on an Irish postbox but it does remind me that I have yet to figure out why Queen Elizabeth II, who succeeded George VI, her father, in 1952, reigns in Shanagarry in East Cork.

I was struck by the font of ‘G R’ which appears more casual than the ‘V R’, ‘ E R’ and ‘G R’ that are more regularly seen on green postboxes.

The web reveals that the each monarch noted on postboxes had a different cypher (crown) and font. If I was to select one that I would like to go for a pint with, based solely on their font, George VI would be top of the list.

That evening on Boards.ie, I was reading of the difficulty in spotting green postboxes in rural areas with which one might not be familiar. There was a comment that in Europe, postboxes are yellow for visibility. Their colour is not a statement of nationalism, as might be the case with red and green.

Crosshaven appears to be moving up the rankings of cool European places.