Éiresol Style - Irish Graffiti

Just added 70+ photos

check it

Organisers of Galway’s Annual Wet T-shirt Competition, scheduled to go ahead this June, have announced its cancellation due to the city’s ongoing water contamination crisis.

The Wet T-shirt competition is the centrepiece of the world-renowned Galway Nudes Festival, which has taken place in the city every year since 1980, and its abandonment is a massive blow to the city’s tourist industry. Festival Manager Paul Drumlin yesterday confirmed the news:

“I’m devastated to make this announcement, but the health and safety of the participants and spectators is the number one priority here. Needless to say, water is fundamental to the competition, and it just wasn’t feasible to boil that amount of water, then letting it cool, before hosing it on the ample bosoms of 200 nubile young ladies.”

Every year, an estimated 500 gallons of water is harnessed from the River Corrib and redirected to the Spanish Parade where it is sprayed on the chests of the T-shirt-clad female contestants, who come from all over the globe to compete in one of the world’s biggest and most prestigious water-based titillation contests.

With the wet t-shirt competition being the main tourist draw, the other numerous events in the Nudes Festival, including the Flashing Fleadh, the Ann Summers Irish Bra Opening Championship and the Guinness World Mooning Competition, will also not go ahead, despite them being non-water related.

“There was no other option but to cancel the whole festival,” says Mayor of Galway Liam O’Brilcréim. “Ticket applications were down massively compared to last year. It seems that people’s fear of contracting the cryptosporidium parasite outweighs their desire to leer at naked people for two weeks.”

Since the outbreak, Galway County Council has received most of the blame for failing to introduce adequate treatment of the local water supply. However, others, like Fr. Jarlath Lonergan, take a more apocalyptic view of the situation:

“The water contamination crisis is merely manifestation of God’s judgement on Galway City. This is the first of many disasters that will befall it for hosting such a hedonistic and sinful event as a festival of nudity. Like Sodom and Gomorrah before it, Galway will be destroyed for incurring His wrath!”

Can’t be arsed walking around town? Just jump in an ecocab. There’s a good few of these about town and it’s free to ride in them. Shouting at peasant pedestrians while you cruise by is optional.

http://www.ecocabs.ie

be sure to check part two.

Tommy Gorman from the Taxi Drivers union get in the wrong cab…

Graffiti justice nothing to write home about

It is described as a “charming family/investment residence” in a “much sought after location”. Even allowing for the estate agent speak, there is much to be said for the distinctive white, 1970s-style house with its angular features on sale in Glasnevin, north Dublin.

The sales pitch, though, doesn’t mention the graffiti on the side wall of the property overlooking the green.
Over the outline of original graffiti that was washed off with a calcium carbonate solution by council workers, somebody has drawn the outline of a face, various squiggles and the initials SPB. This is a “tag” - the signature graffiti vandals leave after them.

“That’s the muppet over there,” says a teenage neighbour who claims to be a victim of SPB’s malicious graffiti. He points Dublin City Council’s graffiti officer, Martin Daly, in the direction of a house where the alleged offender lives.

Daly notes the name and the house number - details he will pass on to gardaí in Finglas - but experience has taught him to hold out little hope that anything significant will be done.

In theory, graffiti vandals can be prosecuted under Section II of the Criminal Damage Act, 1991, and the Litter Pollution Act, 1997. Possible sanctions include a custodial sentence of up to 10 years or a €10,000 fine.

“I’ve been aware in the last couple of years of where prosecutions have come, a couple of fines have been paid but you count them on one hand,” Daly says.

“In the last couple of years there has been more of an effort to catch people in the act. However, I’m not aware of any prosecutions pending for that.

“If we keep letting people off with a slap on the wrist, then they are not going to be too concerned about getting caught. If the court systems don’t effectively deal with the offenders, why even have it as part of the Criminal Damage Act?”

While unsightly, the graffiti on the wall in Glasnevin is inoffensive compared to a racist remark sprayed outside O’Connell School on North Richmond Street in Dublin’s north inner city. Racist slogans and swastikas appear with depressing regularity wherever black families have moved into inner-city areas.

Graffiti that is racist, offensive or politically motivated is the council’s priority.
In the past six months 879 instances of graffiti have been identified in Dublin City Council’s area.
“You don’t realise how much graffiti there is until you go looking for it. It’s everywhere,” said Ciarán McInerney, who has been cleaning up Dublin’s graffiti for 15 years - and once had his van burned out for his troubles.

A drive around the north inner city reveals the extent of the problem. There is hardly a stretch of wall, gate, hoarding or billboard that isn’t festooned with tags.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has raised the issue, inquiring why nothing has been done about the graffiti on the new Shantalla flyover. “It’s election year - we get letters from politicians all the time,” says Daly. “He’s one of the polite ones.”

Graffiti writers earn considerable kudos from their peers for tagging in risky places such as the undersides of bridges, high-rise buildings, railway underpasses and river banks.

In East Wall someone drew their tag in 10ft letters while perched on a ledge that could be no more than a foot wide.
“We had a guy who painted the roofs and the chimney stacks all along Leeson Street,” recalls McInerney. “Somebody is going to get killed.” (Earlier this year two men were killed writing graffiti on a London Underground tunnel.)

The proliferation of graffiti has not gone unnoticed by Minister for Justice Michael McDowell. Last year he told the Dáil that his own middle-class south Dublin constituency was “under sustained attack” by graffiti “vandals” - a remark that incurred the wrath of self-proclaimed graffiti “artists”. McDowell said social deprivation was no excuse for tagging walls. “It seems to be spreading everywhere,” he said.

Last year the Government announced a €3 million pilot project, including a “rapid response unit”, to tackle graffiti in the worst affected parts of Dublin, Bray and Galway.

This was on top of the millions already being spent on the problem by local authorities. But Daly believes that in addition to a clean-up budget, there must be the prospect of jail to deter hardened offenders. “A couple of years ago I was asked how much we should put in the estimates for graffiti clean-up. I said €10 million. It was an exaggeration, but I could spend €10 million but it wouldn’t even be noticed. Custodial sentences will not necessarily stop anything, but they will make other people think. And if you reduce the problem, it makes it easier to deal with.”

Ro-dawg McGreeevy
The Irish Times

This is from a video called “Stations of the Elevated” produced in 1980, with a score by the late great Charles Mingus.
Possibly the first film made on the subject of train graffiti.

part 1

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5 all up on YouTube at the moment.

“Here’s an opportunity for artists of every persuasion to design an abandoned shop front on one of the busiest thoroughfares in the city centre.

“The site in question (pictured below) is 2 old shop fronts, with the old window frames, doors, signs etc clearly visible under the black paintover. Both shop fronts are 6m wide each and 4m high. The brief for this competition is, using the existing framework of the shop front, re-interpret it and create your own dazzler of a shop front, with signage, window scenes and fantastical colours… or whatever else you might come up with, ’tis all up to you.

“The deadline for entries is Monday May 21st 6pm with the winner being announced in the June edition of Totally Dublin. There is also a fund of up to €500 to pay for parts and materials.

Entries can be e-mailed in PDF or Jpeg format to paintjob [at] bodytonicmusic.com or:

Fao: John Mahon
The Bernard Shaw
11 - 12 Sth. Richmond Street
Portobello
Dublin 2

“This competiton is open to anyone from anywhere but the winner travels at his or her own expense. If you have anymore questions about the competition contact John at +353 85 712 8342 or email john@bodytonicmusic.com”

a couple of vids from London…