Imagine an old lightship, covered in luminous paint, and illuminated to glow and fade with the waxing and waning light . . . It sounds incredibly beautiful, but it has existed thus far only in the imagination, because Dorothy Cross's Nissan Award-winning project for Scotman's Bay, Dun Laoghaire, ran into such technical difficulties that it is running about four months behind schedule, and is now due to be launched in February.

Ghost Ship is, says Dorothy Cross, a homage to the many lightships which once marked dangerous reefs around the Irish coast, but have all but disappeared.