It has been a great decade for commemorations but I’m sorry to inform you that we missed a crucial centenary. Fear not, with a bit of forward planning, the 150th anniversary of the death of Father Pat Noise can be properly commemorated in 2069.
As you may recall, Father Pat Noise died in mysterious circumstances when his carriage plunged into the river Liffey on August 10th, 1919. As you may also recall, the unfortunate cleric never existed. His death presents a bit of a dilemma, similar to the case of Schrödinger’s doomed cat. Father Noise is only known to us because of his death, yet can he have died because he never existed? This is the sort of thing that keeps philosophers tossing and turning at 3am.
If you were distracted in May 2006, you may have missed the hullabaloo surrounding the curious case of Father Noise. That was when the public’s attention was drawn to a bronze plaque commemorating the priest, on O’Connell Bridge. It noted that he was a theological advisor to Peadar Clancey [sic], who did in fact exist. IRA volunteer Peadar Clancy was killed on the evening of Bloody Sunday 1920.
But the seeds were sown for the plaque many years earlier, thanks to the Millennium Clock, the digital timepiece placed in the Liffey in 1996 to count down the seconds until the year 2000.
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A postcard machine was installed on the bridge, allowing users to buy a card that recorded the time remaining on the clock. It was an ill-fated project as the clock struggled for survival in the murky, slimy depths of the Liffey. Rebelling at its working conditions, the clock sometimes threw up random figures that had no relation to the actual time left until the Millennium. It was even claimed that the clock occasionally went backwards for sheer devilment.
Eventually the clock and the postcard machine were quietly removed, leaving a rectangular-shaped indent on the bridge. Thousands of people passed that indent every day, but only two people saw an opportunity.
The still-anonymous brothers forged their very own plaque to commemorate a figment of their imagination. His side-profile was reportedly that of their father and Latin scholars were happy to observe that Father Pat Noise was a loose play on the words pater noster, or our father.
They said they placed the plaque there in 2004, but despite the massive footfall across the bridge, it wasn’t noticed until May 2006. That was when eagle-eyed Eoghan Rice, a journalist with another sadly ill-fated venture - the Sunday Tribune - asked Dublin City Council about it.
Unsurprisingly, the council could find no record of the reverend and his theological briefings. The plaque was briefly removed but there was an outcry from the public, who left flowers and messages at the site. This encouraged councillors to vote in favour of leaving it in place.
And 18 years since its installation, the plaque is still in situ. Father Noise has also inspired an RTÉ documentary, and his own piece of music. The much-praised Lament of Fr Pat Noise appeared on The Golden Mean album in 2010, courtesy of piper Eoin Dillon and his collaborators.
It’s not the only tongue-in-cheek monument in Ireland. Tourists passing Joyce’s Craft Shop in Recess, Connemara regularly spill out of their buses and cars to look at the Connemara Giant perched on a plinth across the road. According to the accompanying plaque, it represents Connemara, son of the sea, and was built by the craft shop in 1999 “for no apparent reason”.
It was in fact, built by Mark Joyce, who took over the craft shop from his father Kevin. If tourists look behind the Connemara Giant, they will see a sculpture mounted by Kevin Joyce years earlier. Its plaque declares: “On this site in 1897 nothing happened.”
“Dad had put up that plaque so when I took over, I felt I had to put my mark on things,” Mark Joyce explains reasonably.
He built the concrete statue himself “just for the fun of it”. In a previous life, he was in the movie business making props and he worked in Roger Corman’s film studio in Connemara. He was more familiar with constructing houses that blew up and tables and chairs that broke when someone fell on them. But the Connemara Giant isn’t going anywhere. He crouches stoically as tourists pose alongside him, imitating his stance. He has even appeared in a couple of books on roadside monuments.
Proof that if you build it, they will come. Even if you build it for no reason at all, and you are commemorating absolutely nothing.