09.07.2025
This day last year we hit the road for a tour around Ireland … at the wheel of Liliane’s late father’s Renault 4, tour de force was a celebration of culture and creativity in the format of a mapped adventure engaging with artists, musicians, mechanics, farmers, archaeologists, craftspeople, academics and aficionados over a series of pit stops all around Ireland…a summer 2025 ‘buddy movie’.
For our departure event at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios we were joined by James Collins, one of Ireland’s last remaining traditional Traveller tinsmiths, who demonstrated the making of a poncher (mug). He sat by the car working on the tin mug and talking a bit about the objects he’d created over the years; billy-cans, pails, coal scuttles and a barrel top caravan he’d made with the use of string for taking measurements.
James with his friend, Michael ‘Gig’ Collins, discussed the challenges of passing on skills, knowledge, Intangible heritage, the rising cost of tin and copper and the scarcity of tools that were once widely available. Tin smithing became commercially obsolete between the 1960s and 1970s with the introduction of cheap, factory-made plastics and mass-produced goods in Ireland. From a vocational trade to a specialist craft in half a century.
James hammered and shaped a sheet of tin throughout and gave us a poncher, as well as a beautiful copper coal scuttle - good luck charms for the road ahead.
After the event at TBG+S, we left in the car to collect Barry Kehoe at IMMA and we all hit the road on the R110 (Old Naas Road), which transitions into the R445 at Naas. Another factor in this tour was that we were staying off motorways completely. The weather was scorching that day. With Barry in the Car, we set up the live Twitch and streamed some cassettes and chats until we reached Kilcullen. Barry had organised a meeting there with a family who’ve been the custodians of Dan Donnelly’s mummified arm for several generations. Dan Donnelly, born March 1788, was a professional boxing pioneer and the first Irish-born heavyweight champion. We were shown the arm outside a garage in Kilcullen and later we got to see the archive that had amassed over the years; photographs, articles and mementos. Graverobbers were initially responsible for the mummified arm moving independently from its resting place at Bully’s Acre, Kilmainham, though after, the arm was displayed in the Hideout public house in Kilcullen, for four decades from 1953. During the 2000s the arm was exhibited in New York, Boston, in Omagh, Co. Tyrone and Croke Park, Dublin.
We took some photos with the arm, us holding it and then the arm beside the fiddle and on the Renault 4 to give a sense of scale. Difficult to convey its length, even with the reference to these other objects.
After taking some photos together and with the arm, we left to drop Barry to the train station. However… we’d left very little time for the journey, since hearing about the mummified arm and seeing its archive had been so fascinating. We essentially needed nothing to go wrong now since this was the last train for the evening. As we drove along at no more than 40km/hr towards the train station, Barry’s worry was palpable so we gave him a Seamus Heaney poem to read out for the live Twitch stream with people tuning in.
Barry read The Tollund Man and we missed a turn as we’d all become distracted, thinking about the bog man in Aarhus and the experience we’d just had. The missed turn threw an extra two minutes onto the trip according to Google Maps but for us, that would be about three and a half or four minutes in the R4.
Some day I will go to Aarhus
To see his peat-brown head,
The mild pods of his eye-lids,
His pointed skin cap…
Liliane was booting it now and Barry was finishing out the poem with great conviction. Somehow, Liliane managed to bring the car up to the speed of 60km/hr and we made it into the station a minute before the train was due, Barry lept out of the car and ran towards the platform and we waited there to receive a confirmation text. Happily, the train was four minutes late and Barry had a moment to relax on the platform and send a text before he boarded. We then left and headed towards Dunamaise that evening.
