An Irishman's Diary

WHEN I heard that something called an “international forge-in” was planned for Monaghan over a weekend in June, my first reaction was to wonder if I should pass the information on to gardaí.

News that the world’s leading forgers would be arriving to share their expertise only heightened my concern. I imagined a series of master-classes in how to make counterfeit money, or false passports, or new improved copies of the Hitler Diaries.

Maybe the event would also lead to the discovery of a hitherto-unknown Van Gogh masterpiece, painted during a weekend he had spent in Castle Leslie.

But on closer inspection it turned out that the gardaí could relax, because none of this would be happening. The international forge-in is instead to be an entirely legal gathering, involving those original forgers: blacksmiths. Master blacksmiths, in fact. And although the event will indeed produce a work of art – by definition a masterpiece – this too will be legal, and original. Furthermore, when the forge-in is over, the work will be left behind as a gift to the town.

Blacksmiths are not the most obvious artists, perhaps. But then again, James Joyce famously likened himself to one when, in the guise of Stephen Dedalus, he announced his manifesto: “Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.” So he would surely be pleased to know that the man now widely acknowledged as the world’s finest blacksmith is a namesake – Tom Joyce – whose smithy is located not in his soul (although maybe it’s there as well) but in Santa Fe, New Mexico. That Joyce will be in Monaghan in June. As will Alexander Sushnikov from Russia, Francisco Gazitua from Chile, and – despite the earthquake, which shook his workshop – Takaoshi Komine from Japan.

In fact, nine of what are considered the top 10 international blacksmiths will attend. Alongside Irish masters, they will lead a series of workshops, each of which will produce a panel for a wrought-iron structure called “The Hive of Knowledge”, designed by Irish master Mark Keeling. There will also be lectures and exhibitions through the weekend. And of course there will be eating and drinking, with the communal banquets of medieval blacksmiths guilds replicated in tents.

The International Forge-in takes place from June 24th to 26th. More information can be obtained from The Markethouse, Monaghan (047-38162) or the Irish Artist Blacksmiths Association, at irishblacksmiths.com

AT THE RISK of putting the cart before the horse – always embarrassing when there are blacksmiths or farriers watching – I hope the finished sculpture in Monaghan is well secured. Because thanks to the lucrative global trade in scrap metal, these are stressful times for people who commission and create public art.

James Joyce comes to mind again, for another reason. As classics scholars will know, he took his alter ego’s name from the mythical Greek craftsman Daedalus, whose winged sculptures were said to be so perfectly made that, if not tied down, they would fly away.

Well, a similar problem has been affecting Irish public artworks of late, especially those located along roads. A bronze-and-steel sculpture called Grainne Óg was one of the latest to disappear from its standing place – the M6 near Moate – a couple of weeks ago, even though it didn’t have wings. And around the same time, Willie Malone’s The Hitchhiker was given a lift, permanently, from its plinth along the Dublin-Cork road in Kildare.

The problem is not unique to Ireland, nor to art. As recently as Wednesday, police in Somerset were conducting house-to-house inquiries after 19 manhole covers disappeared from local towns. Indeed, the trade in metal has seen spates of such thefts, including Scotland’s so-called “great drain robbery” of 2004. Such was the demand in China at one point that 1,500 manhole covers went missing in Shanghai over a two-month period, causing multiple accidents, some of them fatal.

It’s not just metal that attracts infrastructure thieves either. One of the stand-out crimes of the Celtic Tiger era in Dublin was the 2001 larceny of a stretch of the Liffey wall near Guinness’s. The granite blocks were two centuries old and the poignancy of their loss was all the greater because I remember it drawing condemnation from the then deputy city engineer: a man named – of all things – Tim Brick.

Even given that it happened late, you’d think somebody would have seen it. But Dublin was one big building site then and people probably didn’t look twice at workmen who no doubt appeared to be carrying out essential maintenance. This is the problem for roadside art too: nobody slows down long enough to stare, either at the sculpture or at the men with angle grinders. It’s probably only the presence of pedestrians crossing it at all hours that has so far saved the Hal’penny Bridge.

The second-worst thing about metal art theft is the huge depreciation that, even with soaring scrap prices, accompanies the crime. A Henry Moore sculpture stolen from a park in England in 2005 was valued at £3 million, for example, whereas police think it was sold for a mere £1,500 and then melted down. With such a differential, you’d think some enterprising scrap dealer would at least consider taking art lessons, before melting the stuff himself and, as it were, trying to forge something new out of it.