His name was Jaune and he was a taciturn sort of fellow. Perhaps he was shy, perhaps he was rude, perhaps he was paralysed with fear as we took possession of him and filled out the paperwork at Galway city library. "Are you a member of this library?" the official from Urban Dream Capsule's Paperwork Department asked us. "Yes." "Have you any books overdue?" "Em, no ." And, final question: "Do you go busking?" We weren't quite sure how to respond to this one. It had been something of a battle to get out of bed and into town early on a Saturday morning, and we had been told initially that there were no little men left.
A crowd had gathered. We were being watched. Would we jeopardise our chances by giving the wrong answer? "No," we replied. "Good," she beamed, and gave us our man in a plastic bag, with our signed "contract", entitled Mentor Declaration of Intent.
She had insisted that we read it, small print and all. "I declare that, in accordance with the terms and conditions of the 1999 United Nations Convention on Opportunities for Gnomic Peoples in A Wider Arena, I have bonded with Gnome Jaune, released to me for this one day." That was just the first paragraph. "I understand that participation in the Tourist Proxy Programme is a window of opportunity for my Gnome to expand his world view, and I undertake to show and share the places and paces of my life here in Ireland with him. I will endeavour to provide an excursion both entertaining and wholesome, whilst maximising his understanding of the possibilities for wee folk in the tourist industry.
"So that the experiences of my seconded Gnome may be catalogued, tabulated, displayed, and generally enter the collective memory of the urban dream team, I will record his adventures with a series of photographs or drawings. I will return between two and five of these to the urban dream capsule by hand or e-mail by July 28th, 2001 . . . I rejoice in my new role of Gnome Mentor and will try to remember that as young Gnomes are born with perfect pitch, my Gnome will require close supervision on the streets of Galway. I do declare that it is my intent to return him to the Home Window at the appointed time of 5 p.m., Saturday, as a Gnome Enlightened."
So much to do, so little time. Communicating through the double glazed window before we left, Neil Thomas emphasises that Jaune has to be back in just under six hours. We wouldn't be able to take him clubbing, or take him drinking for the night. He had a big appointment the following day, as a participant in the Galway Arts Festival's Macnas street carnival. Hence the name "Jaune", for the yellow section of the Colours' parade.
Cian (4) and Ailbe (5), fellow mentors, felt he needed a good feed in McDonagh's Fish Restaurant in Quay Street - where one can enjoy the finest chowder this side of the Shannon. However, such is its popularity that it was already packed. To our shame, we slunk off to a fast-food restaurant which shall remain nameless, but which does provide high chairs for little people.
Next destination was the Early Learning Centre, where Jaune didn't throw tantrums and didn't seem to want to buy up the whole shop, and this was followed by a session with the buskers and jugglers on Shop Street.
"The swans!" Ailbe said, and we proceeded briskly to the Claddagh, where the birds were still recovering from recent oil spillages in the Corrib. St Jude's, a bungalow (appropriately painted yellow) with a beautiful garden on the Claddagh waterfront, is a haven for gnomes and leprechauns and ducks and all sorts of little clay people. We knocked on the door and the owner welcomed us in.
We took some more photos: Jaune with gnome watering can, Jaune with the owner, Nancy Long- and was he whispering in her ear? As we bid farewell, she told us that she has to take most of her little people in at night, because of vandalism.
He met dinosaurs, trolls and Teletubbies; played in a sandpit and made chocolate Rice Krispie cakes. It was 5.15 p.m. by the time we reached the library, but we were armed with some Krispie cakes (those that Jaune hadn't devoured) as a peace offering.
Back in the window, the four bald inhabitants gave him a warm welcome and continued with their afternoon activities. David Wells was in his pyjamas and had climbed into a camp-bed for a snooze. Neil Thomas was checking the computer for e-mails, while Andrew Morrish and Nick Papas were painting more gnomes. "They're not real, you know," Ailbe whispered to Cian from the pavement. "I know," he whispered back, darting a worried glance at his mother. They both nodded, as if they knew "she" had lost it but they wouldn't want to spoil her fun.
A woman in her mid-50s was pleading with Thomas for a gnome. We suggested that she come back on Monday after the Macnas parade, when some more might have returned. "Oh no," she said, agitatedly. "We're bringing him to the (Galway-Cork) match in Dublin tomorrow."
Over the past 10 days, Jaune, Jessie (painted as a Galway footballer), Jackie McChan, Rosco (as in Roscommon), Peat Bog, Spike and other gnomic friends created from a mould and painted on location have caught the public's imagination in a way that the members of the Urban Dream Capsule hadn't expected when they took up residence in the library window in Galway on July 17th. The performers, who first staged the concept in a Melbourne department-store window in 1996, developed the gnomes as a sort of "subsidiary", according to Thomas.
"We started messing with them in Perth; we took them to Chicago and people went wild about them there," he says. While the four cooked, ate, slept and generally lived together in a sealed public environment for a fortnight, the gnomes enjoyed parts of the city they would never see. Some went disco dancing, some were offered illegal substances, some became part of people's families - or provided a temporary substitute for those who yearned for same. "Obviously, the gnomes allow people to find a voice for themselves that no one else listens to," Thomas muses. "It gives adults an excuse to explore their imagination in a way they may not be allowed to in their normal daily lives."
As for the reaction in Galway generally, it has been very enthusiastic - to the relief of the festival organisers who took a big risk in paying £80,000, a large proportion of a small budget for the 24-hour public performance. The delight has been particularly evident at night, when the normally quiet Augustine Street is transformed into a constant party as spectators roar, clap, laugh and dance with the performers. One woman even managed a French kiss through the double glazing.
"Amorously wild!" is how Thomas describes his female audience, which isn't confined to those "dreadful Galway girls". There is a strong multinational following and a hard core of fans that return again and again.
During the daylight hours, however, he has noted a certain shyness. "To tell you the truth, I can't quite get gauge the character here yet, but we've had incredible generosity, with gifts of sunflowers, organic potatoes ('thank you, Mr Bill Jennings'), a present of Mairt∅n O'Connor's new album, The Road West, which just blew us away. Yet if you approach people too closely, they step back and seem easily put off. Perhaps it is just that there hasn't been sufficient exposure to weird art, which is, I guess, what we represent."
Father Dick Lyng of the Augustinian Church has become their most familiar neighbour. Last week, he was busy with his own festival event - three passion plays with shadow puppets in the church, the first entitled The Trouble with Women. "He has been incredibly supportive, waving to us every morning and sending us e-mails," Thomas says. One of the gnomes has been named Father Dick in his honour.
The library is just down the street from the festival club, in De Burgo's, the Garda S∅ochβna club. Observing the late-night drinkers, Thomas remarks that the Irish are "good at it. There's incredible violence associated with drink in Australia and the US, but here there is so much more emphasis on the talk than on the drink and so the drink can't just take over."
Security guards ensure that there is no late-night trouble, and the men in uniform have become a part of the act, according to Thomas. "There's a group of four, with two regulars, including Ben and Bernard, and they go into their little shed and wave at us from the window."
Thomas is essentially positive and seems genuinely convinced, after over a week in a "cell", that Ireland is a "wonderful place", but one with a lot of "grief and upset". There is "so much going on in the Irish psyche", he says, but he senses "a fundamental joy" that one doesn't get in "dismal England".
His one little upset is the irresponsibility shown by several mentors who haven't returned their charges. While some have been to the Aran islands, to hurling and football and to pubs - one has even gone to Spain - quite a few are missing. He is appealing for their urgent return.
The four don't expect much sleep on their hammocks tonight, as there are plans for a special street party. Tomorrow, they make their grand exit at around 3 p.m. and will be paraded around Eyre Square before giving a press conference.
They have already prepared a "ten-most-asked-questions" response on their website, including why they shave their heads and whether they ever get bored. "We never get bored because there is always something to do, something exciting, something extraordinary. It is a life lived on higher octane fuel."
And the most memorable moment? "There have been many here," Thomas says. "But a woman came up at about 1.30 one morning and said she wanted to sing us a song. We turned off our music, put glasses up to the window to listen, and the street fell absolutely quiet. There was a big hush, as she sang unaccompanied. It was beautiful, and when she was finished there was an enormous round of applause . . ."
Urban Dream Capsule is at Galway city library, Augustine Street, and can be seen on the Internet at www.urbandream.com