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'Anticipating ELBEAU'
'ELBEAU' this word will connect with anyone who grew up in Artane in the 80's. To others it is just a strange name signifying nothing, except the sound of ones body part. For the children growing in Artane it had many meanings, comparing with magic itself. It meant sports days filled with rounders, football, hurling matches and swimming galas. If sports wasn't your thing, there were art and crafts, leather making, knitting or pottery classes. Trips to Clara Lara, Rainbow Rapids or the cinema to name but a few. Evenings and mornings of movies in the hall as we cheered for Rocky with interruptions from the Projector mans voice as he bellowed " Just changing the reel!!" The ELBEAU discos in your shined up shoes. The slow set empting the floor, boys finding one wall as the girls faced them on the other side of the hall, making that distance into a hard walk of shame if a refusal took place, where all the spectators could see. Beauty competitions and Tarzan champions, new friends and belly laughs. We thought these endless summer days would never arrive. Then on June 30th it was time, time to run with your silver 50p coin to seal the deal, to hold your membership card which gave you access to Narnia. This painting represents a moment in my mind which has brightened and flowered through the years. As always when I paint scenes from our area from memory I remember my good friend Gavin Mc Fetridge who I can still hear laugh if I listen quietly enough. I remember Owen Rooney with his Pyjamas on under his clothes, telling me he had not got enough time to change because he wanted to get out to play, I think about them as I paint with thoughts of Emer Harmon and Hugine Reilly who all left us far too early. Some believe we die twice, First when our mortality ends here and secondly when people stop thinking and talking about you, I feel people live on trough our spirit, energy and all those who remember them with love as we live. Through art and painting it captures their spirit too, eternalising their energy and life . I pay homage and respect to all I have known there. The fights, the tears, the laughs, the jeers, the great residents who made ELBEAU happen, Eileen Troy, Josephine Mc Guirk to name a few. It was a privilage to grow up in this great community. Today I am proud and lucky to have been born in this area in an age where extreme capitalism was still a far distance from our shores, in an age where community spirit was breathing and people where close, always there for one another, where even the dogs had nick names. its energy will always reside in me.
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Ireland
