The Tower, a 12-metre art sculpture unveiled in Fermoy last week to mark the completion of the OPW’s flood relief scheme, takes its influence from the tradition of rowing in the town and a three-piece clinker-style boat that was used in competitions around Ireland by the well-known Rice brothers in the 1960s and ‘70s.

The sculpture was installed in the park field beside the River Blackwater on Wednesday, January 18th and was designed by James L Hayes.

Mr Hayes is a contemporary visual artist and a lecturer in Fine Art Sculpture at the CIT Crawford College of Art & Design in Cork. He was awarded the commission for the project by the OPW and Cork County Council in September 2015 after seeing off competition from a host of other artists.

Speaking to The Avondhu this week, Mr Hayes said the OPW had originally envisaged the winning sculpture being installed along Barnane Walk.

“When they started to see the proposals come in, I think they realised it was kind of impossible to put anything down there due to the nature of the bank and the flooding and so on …

Full story in this week’s Print & Digital Edition