New book celebrating public art on highways and byways

Travelling the length and breadth of Ireland, photographing and documenting the public sculptures and artworks that are dotted across the countryside sounds like a true labour of love.

But that’s what Ann Lane has done for her new collection, By the Way 2, which has just been launched with a foreword by President Michael D Higgins.

The illustrated book features nearly 40 artworks from Galway, including Eddie Delaney’s renowned Galway Hooker sails in Eyre Square; John Coll’s sculpture of Galway footballer Enda Colleran in Moylough, and the Inquisitive Hare by Donnacha Cahill at Killimor National School.

As the title suggests, By the Way 2 is a follow-up to Ann’s debut work on the same subject, published in 2010.

“I had always been interested in large outdoor installations, and photographed them randomly over the years whenever I came across them either here or abroad,” explains Ann, who lives in Dublin.

“However, the idea for the first book came from a calendar of photographs of roadside sculptures in Cork that my sister gave me many years ago.”

Ann decided to visit the locations of all the pieces featured in the calendar and thus began a major passion.

“It took almost three years to make my lists and then travel the country photographing the installations,” she says, explaining that she drove 26,000 kms to collect the 760 images included in that first book.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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