The owners of a much-loved art installation at Electric Picnic are offering a free ticket to the sold-out festival for anyone who can help find their stolen house.
As robberies go, they don’t come more audacious than the robbery of a house.
Some time in the last couple of weeks, a thief, or more likely thieves, robbed the Granny's House from the woods in Stradbally, Co Laois where it was in situ for the Electric Picnic festival.
Granny’s House is a much-loved installation which allowed festival-goers to find a moment’s repose from the din outside.
Its interior is fitted out with flock wallpaper, a black and white television and a picture of the Pope to resemble the living room your grandmother might have had in the 1970s or 1980s.
Granny’s House is run by The Glow Depot, a production house based in Dublin which specialises in large scale balloon displays and interactive art installations.
It was first erected on site two years ago in the ArtLot area of the festival and was judged too big to remove again so it was left on site.
It did not deter other thieves who removed the Granny’s House over the last few weeks.
Why anybody would want to steal it is a bit of a mystery. It would be cheaper to buy a new garden shed than to go to the considerable trouble of robbing this one.
Given its uniqueness, it is unlikely to appear on eBay any time soon.
The Glow Depot put posters in windows locally. Instead of posters of missing cats or dogs, there was one for a missing granny’s house.
Glow Depot director John Kenny said the house had very little monetary value. Its value was in its uniqueness.
“A huge amount of work went into the installation itself,” he said. “If someone is using it as a garden shed, we would like to get it back.”
He says it is most likely the thieves screwed it apart and flatpacked it away.
The Glow Depot is offering a free ticket to the sold out festival for information that might lead to its return.
Mr Kenny promised to replace the Granny’s House if it is not returned in time for the festival. “We will make sure that granny has a new house,” he said.
Contact artlotep@gmail.com in confidence if you have any information.
