It’s easy to miss, a bright coloured mural of a kingfisher on the whole side of a building in the centre of Cork City. It’s not as if the mural was painted last week, it has been there since May 2019. In my defence it is on the opposite side of the City, so an area less frequented by myself.

The mural is by London based artist Curtis Hylton and is one of ten projects which were allocated funding as part of a programme to regenerate parts of Cork City.

The idea was to create something beautiful but also to make an impact and highlight the issue of plastic waste in our rivers and seas.

Curtis Hylton

The home page of Curtis’ website reflects this Kingfisher mural (or at least at the time of writing this post it did).

The Conservation Message

In looking up at the initial image I was struck by the brightness and intensity of colour, all characteristics associated with the sparkling Kingfisher. First glance made it look like a successful catch, a supper of a fish caught in its dagger like beak. Stopping to take it in, the fish morphed into a plastic bottle and bag.

At the foot of the mural, nets of orange and cyan nylon trap the kingfisher as it looks to escape the water with its easy, but unrewarding, ‘catch’.

Personally I think that Curtis Hylton has succeeded in creating something beautiful but that also has impact. What do you think?

Perfect Irony

It’s a perfect, but ironic, statement of the world in which we live. Here we have a fabulous colourful mural that has been commissioned to highlight the damage that waste can cause. In the bottom corner of the images one can see an abandoned supermarket trolley.

Perfect irony and so sad.

Locating the Mural

Even with meekly proffered excuses, it seems difficult to imagine how anyone could miss such a striking mural, so here I highlight how easy it is to miss such a bright and colourful image on the side of a building. The mural is on a building at the corner of St Paul’s Avenue and Lavitt’s Quay. St Paul’s Avenue is largely used as a short bit of tarmac into the Car Park of the same name. So if on St Paul’s Avenue one would normally be preparing to enter the car-park or leaving the car park to join the main road. If travelling by car on Lavitt’s Quay one would only be able to see the mural if heading in an easterly direction, but focus should be on getting in the left hand lane and on the sets of traffic lights. I guess the moral of the story is we should walk more, drive less and open our eyes.

For those that would like a little additional assistance in locating the mural it is pretty much opposite St Mary’s Priory Roman Catholic Church on the other side of the River Lee’s north channel.

All the above pictures were taken on a cold and crisp New Year’s Day in Cork City, well within 5km of the house.

Happy New Year everybody