It is cold, bleak and lonely, and Leah Durkan knew this was the place to be. Windy Gap is on the road to nowhere north of Castlebar. But it was on the route to somewhere for a former door-to-door salesmen when he landed in Killala Bay, Co Mayo, 200 years ago next month.
Jean Joseph Amable Humbert, the tall French general, covered some 280 kilometres on Irish soil before being forced out of the western county on September 5th, 1798. It had been a spectacular couple of weeks - capturing Killala and Ballina and defeating superior English forces at the "Castlebar races".
The gap at Bofeenaun through which he led his sea-weary troops to the Mayo town is now host to an unusual commemoration. No re-created battle scenes or military symbols here; just 108 heads carved from plaster and sand, which have been placed on the slope by four students from each of the 27 secondary schools in the county.
The students worked under sculptor Leah Durkan, who was selected last year for the Mayo County Council artist in residence panel. Durkan, who is English but with strong family roots in Kiltimagh, graduated from art college in 1989 and spent the last six to seven years on outdoor sculpture. She is particularly interested in the relationship between such art works and their environment. So the 108 heads in Windy Gap, entitled O Cheann go Ceann, are already being battered by the Atlantic weather.
The aim of the project was to allow the students to express their feelings and emotions as a reflection of life in Mayo in 1998 - two centuries after the year of the French. As John Coll, Arts Officer with Mayo County Council, explains, the venture is both reflective and contemporary.
Leah Durkan chose the site, which is on common land on the Laherdane road and is signposted as part of the Humbert route. "Not only is it accessible, but I think I was quite overwhelmed by the power of the landscape. The faces will already be dissolving in the rain and wind, the idea being that emotions are transitory." The original works have been documented by photographer Willem Vermaase, and were exhibited at the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology in Castlebar.
Working with the students was, she says, "a breath of fresh air". Many of their schools don't have the facilities, or space in the curriculum, for art. Some had never done any carving before.
"A lot of the students hadn't done any art at all after first year, and yet I feel there is some real talent there which should be developed. It would be a pity if some of them didn't get that opportunity."
The project has elicited a warm response locally, and Leah is now carrying on with her own work and spending a few hours teaching children with special needs in the Castlebar and Swinford areas. The heads will remain in the gap until January of next year, by which time the features will have reflected "changing emotions and natural change", and will be eroding and starting to decay. Catch them now if you can - and again before the end of the year.
The 1798 calendar is as packed west of the Shannon as anywhere else. Collooney, Co Sligo, may now be a bypass village, but it is very much on the '98 map. A significant crossing point since Queen Maeve's time, it was here that the French forces under General Humbert diverted Colonel Vereker and the militia in September of that fateful year.
Collooney has chosen to commemorate the event with a full summer programme, which opened in late April with a balloon festival at Markree Castle. A permanent exhibition relating to the period, and focusing on the Battle of Carrignagat, has been mounted, and a sound and light pageant was held at the castle.
There have been lectures, food and flower festivals, and tours of the Humbert route, and children's workshops in drama, puppet theatre, instrument and costume making at the Teeling Centre. On August 9th, soldiers and pikemen will take to the streets, preceded by an early morning march from Tubbercurry. A showcase of traditional music will be held that weekend, with competitions for junior button accordion, tin whistle and voice.
On August 29th, the committee will host another sound and light pageant at Markree, and there will be a battle re-enactment and fireworks display on September 12th and 13th. More details can be obtained from the Collooney 1798 Commemoration Office at the Teeling Centre, telephone (01) 7167924; e-mail: collooney98@tinet.ie
In Co Clare, the Clare Heritage Centre at Corofin is running a documentary exhibition, Planting the Liberty Tree, the story of the United Irishmen of County Clare, 1798-99. The exhibition is based on the work of Mr Kieran Sheedy, a former controller of RTE Radio 1, who is a frequent contributor to historical magazines, a playwright and a Jacobs Awards winner. He has published works on Michael Dwyer, the Wicklow United Irish leader.
The exhibition runs until October 31st, and is open daily in Corofin from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
