East Pier Maritime Murals

  On the 200-year anniversary of the RNLI, it feels fitting to share my 'Triilogy 2': 3 Lifeboats' mural on the East Pier. It was painted to mark the final launch of Wicklow's Tyne-class lifeboat, the ANNIE BLAKER (centre boat of the 3 and above) on Sunday, 28th April 2019 after 30 years service and having saved 408 lives at sea. I believe she was the last lifeboat in Ireland to be launched from a slipway. On the occasion, sister lifeboats were present including Wicklow's then-current lifeboat, the JOCKS & ANNIE SLATER (boat on right of 3 and below), the first operational Shannon-class boat..... ...and 2 Trent-class lifeboats: the GER TIGCHELAAR (boat on left of 3 and below) from Arklow; and the ANNA LIVIA from Dunlaoighre.

This mural features the fishing vessel, the MARGUERITE, built in 1956 in Scotland. She fished from Wicklow Harbour between 1970-82.  Later sold, she broke her moorings in a storm and sank in Blacksod Bay, County Mayo in the late 1980s.  My mural is dedicated to her owner, Michael Greenwood.

  I created my mural of the Irish Lights tender, the GRANUAILE and the Kish Lighthouse along the East Pier in March 2024. I painted the sea vessel first and upon discovering to my surprise that my mural frame was too large, I opted to add the Kish - as both come under the management of the Commissioners of Irish Lights and both had revolutionary designs for their time. This mural is one of my favourite works. I was especially taken with the distinctive design of the GRANUAILE, with her unique large frontal accommodation feature. The GRANUAILE often anchored in Wicklow Bay as part of her rotational trips along the east coast, while the lights of the Kish may be seen on a clear night from the pier. The GRANUAILE was delivered to Irish Lights in January 2000 as one of the most advanced vessels of her type in the world at the time. She was a prototype for new builds for Trinity House (England & Wales), the Northern Lighthouse Board (Scotland) and the Middle East Navigation Aids Ser...

My mural on the East Pier of the cargo ship, the MV SCOT EXPLORER in late December 2019 has an interesting back-story. The vessel was built in the Royal Bodewes Shipyard in The Netherlands and launched in October 2019. She was delivered in December of that year to its owner, Scotline Limited in Romford, sailing under the UK flag. She was 90 meters length and 15 meters beam. Yet when I commenced my mural in September 2019, my original plan was to paint her sister Scotline cargo ship, the MV SCOT CARRIER. Progress on my CARRIER work was hampered by prolonged bad weather, however. Truth be told, I had an unlucky feeling about the vessel's name. Then in late December, I was informed by the local Conway Port Agency that the SCOT EXPLORER was scheduled to make her maiden voyage arriving in Wicklow Harbour in a few days time. As the CARRIER and the EXPLORER shared a similar design, barring the latter's enclosed wheelhouse, I succeeded in restructuring my mural over a period of two hec...

The LÉ GRAINNE, a Coastal Mine Sweeper sea vessel, was the first own-mural which I painted on the East Pier wall in 1976. (I had previously restored one other mural of the ELIANA cargo ship, which was created by another artist). In the late 1960s, the future viability of the Irish Naval Service was in serious doubt due to the  very low stock of its national fleet at the time. Then in 1971, the Navy Service procured three vessels of a similar design of the Royal Navy Coniston class: the LÉ GRAINNE (formerly the HMS OULSTON), the LÉ BANBA (formerly the HMS ALDERTON) and the LÉ FOLA (formerly the HMS BLAXTON). Collectively, the vessels came under the Ton Class, given their shared Royal Navy name-endings. The three vessels would periodically visit Wicklow Harbour as part of their duty of maintaining contact with different coastal ports. On occasions, the vessels were made available for local people to come on board to visit. I recall, as I was painting the mural, when the crew of ...

The Viking long ship, the SEA STALLION of GLENDALOUGH was painted by me on the East Pier in July 2008. She was an ocean-going thoroughbred reconstruction of SKULDELEV 2, a large longship from the Viking Age. Some 30 meters in length, the long ship was reconstructed by the Viking Ship Museum in Denmark in 2004. Based on recent wood and tree-ring analyses, the original ship was built in accordance with Scandinavian shipbuilding traditions in Dublin around the year 1042. The ship is thus linked with the Scandinavian expansion westwards and the history of the Vikings in Ireland. Without doubt the ship was also on the scene of many dramatic events that occurred at the end of the Viking Age, after William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066. In 2007, THE SEA STALLION undertook a voyage from her home port, Roskilde, Denmark to Dublin. On reaching the River Liffey, she was lifted and hosted in Collins Barracks Museum where she was on display for visitors for a year until her return to Denmar...

  I painted my mural of the WESTEREEMS on the East Pier in early September 2024. The Dutch-constructed WESTEREEMS was one of the first ships that I saw as a young lad whenever I escaped from home to the harbour in the latter half of the 1960s. As a 10 year old, I found this vessel very impressive and in great condition in keeping with the Dutch shipping tradition. The ship was built in 1960 and at some stage before her appearance at Wicklow was converted to carry livestock for export to Continental and English ports. This export trade was managed by the Herbst family from Kilpoole Hill and Frank Conway Shipping Agents, and lasted into the mid-1970s, with many other different vessels involved along the way. There was a cattle lairage on the South Quay and from there, batches of cattle were herded out to the ships at the East Pier. Many people used to sit on the top of the pier in the evenings to watch this fascinating operation! Eventually, this vessel was sold on to different owner...