Wooden wonders! Village statues are a real highlight for Limerick artist

KILFINANE is now playing host to what is possibly the world’s biggest hurley. Standing in the village’s Main Street, the arresting wooden sculpture soars to almost three metres and features a hand emerging out of the ground, grasping a hurley, the bas of which just touches a sliotar.

Alongside the two companion sculptures previously carved by chainsaw artist Will Fogarty, the sculptures are a commanding presence in the village and together sum up the community’s heritage.

For Will Fogarty, who completed The Hurley in four days, there is great satisfaction in seeing his work in such a prominent position. And he pays tribute to the Kilfinane Tidy Towns Committee, who commissioned the trio of sculptures, for such a bold move.

Outlining the background to the project, which began over three years ago, Will explained that young trees planted into the footpath by the committee had been damaged, replaced and then, unfortunately, damaged again. The committee then decided to go another route, placing 12-foot high Douglas Fir logs into the tree-holes and inviting Will to work his magic.

The first sculpture, Will explains, has a musical theme, with a fiddle, bodhrán, accordion and other instruments carved into the log, which is about two-feet in diameter.

“Kifinane would have a great musical tradition,” Will, who is based a few miles away, explains. The second sculpture features wildlife from the area, including a raven, an owl, a fox and a rabbit. The third and final sculpture is The Hurley. “There are many diverse sports in Kilfinane and to try and include them all would be next to impossible,” Will explains.

Instead, the decision was made to focus on hurling, the great Limerick unifier.

“Kilfinane would have a strong hurling tradition,” Will explains. “Kilfinane won one of the first All-Irelands, representing Limerick and the village on the Limerick crest is Kilfinane.”

While working on the sculptures, he got a lot of public response. “I always get a great response, especially in Kilfinane. People would have seen me working.

They would have seen the logs and knew to expect something,” he explains. “People like the idea of seeing it evolve from a log into a piece of art. They get invested in it, unlike another piece of art which is just brought to the site and then fitted.”

Originally a builder in partnership with his brother, Will turned to carving after the down-turn in construction. He “stumbled” into carving and into chainsaw carving as a way to keep busy and to his great satisfaction, it is going really well.

He travels to shows for demonstrations all over the country, although this side of the business has been badly affected by Covid-19 and he expects it will be 2022 before it gets back again.

But he also does private commissions, mostly for gardens, from his base in Hospital. And then there are the public commissions, from councils or Tidy Towns committees all over the country.

In Limerick, some of his commissions can be seen at Soil Ide, Corbally and at the Model School on The Crescent where there is a giant owl, or in the grounds of St Mary’s Cathedral where he transformed a poplar into Dónal Mór O’Briain.

Now, he has magicked Kilfinane’s heritage into bigger-than-lifesize representation. Go visit.

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