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***ICON FACTORY SHOP FRONT AWARD***

A BIG THANKS to Claudine and Temple Bar Traders for entering The Icon Factory into the South East Area City Neighbourhood Competition.

The Icon Factory won a SPECIAL MERIT in the SHOP FRONT CATEGORY.We are giving our best down this end of Temple Bar with the cleaning, painting and brightening up of the area and of course it is always welcomed when effort is recognised.

FINK:

Special mention to the artist FINK who, for free, painted the front, side and signage of the Icon Factory, in doing so helping The Icon Factory win the award.
 

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For anyone wishing for murals or artworks from FINK, you can contact him at: https://www.facebook.com/finkart52

or view his excellent work at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fink55/

The Icon Factory Fund-raising
ART RAFFLE: FRIDAY 26TH OCTOBER

We have organised a fund-raising art raffle in order to fund DCC Signage around Temple Bar so people can find the Icon Walk and The Icon Factory.

The Icon Factory has produced 200 unique, handmade, individual RAFFLE TICKETS. They will be hand-painted, hand-drawn, over-prints, collaged, etc. They will all be different and will be a “work of art” in their own right.

They cost €10 EACH and you will then enter a raffle with a 4 to 1 chance of winning an original work of art or framed print donated to us by some of our favourite illustrators, painters, photographers and artists.

TO VIEW TICKETS ON OFFER – VIEW THE SELECTION ON OUR FACEBOOK PAGE – Follow The Link: ART-RAFFLE TICKETS.

RAFFLE NIGHT/EXHIBITION – FRIDAY 26TH OF OCTOBER.

Anyone wishing to purchase a ticket or donate a work of art, framed print or framed photograph for the raffle contact ME on kevbohan@hotmail.com

ART RAFFLE PRIZES:

CHEERS AND THANKS TO ALL.

The Icon Factory
Aston Place
Temple bar
Dublin 2
Ireland

Opening Hours

Mon-Thu: 12:00 – 18:00
Fri-Sat: 14:00 – 20:00
Sun: 12:00 – 18:00

Email

iconfactorydublin@gmail.com

Websites

FB: iconfactorydublin.ie facebook.com/theiconfactory

SHOP: http://iconfactorydublin.mybigcommerce.com/

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE SHOP

EXHIBITIONS AT THE ICON FACTORY

The Icon Factory is an artist co-operative. Hold your own exhibition in our great location in Dublin’s Temple Bar for FREE.
We charge no commission or no floor fee.

All we ask is that you supply us with the artwork of an Irish Icon in your style that we can use on some of our products. You keep the original Icon artwork and we don’t take any commission from the sale of the original.

All money earned from these products is re-invested back into the Icon Factory Co-Operative.

We can also supply mounted prints of your artwork for the duration of your exhibition, we do take a small commission on sales of these prints, which is also re-invested back into the Icon Factory Co-Operative.

CONTACT US:

For more information regarding Exhibitions at the Icon Factory, contact Regine Schulze at: iconfactorydublin@gmail.com

For more information about the current Exhibition – click here.

Behind The Hard Rock Cafe/Morgan Hotel just off Fleet St.

The Icon Factory is a non-profit, locally based artist’s co-operative and gallery.
Based in Temple Bar the Icon Factory is at the apex of Dublin’s Cultural and Tourist centre.

We produce artworks and products that celebrate our Irish heritage, culture and icons.
Artists, young or old, Irish or from afar are invited to exhibit their artwork here for free.
The Icon Factory gallery is a non-commission exhibition space. We ask for only one Irish related artwork supplied by the artist to the Icon Factory for them to utilise as a product.

Raison d’ etre.

The driving force behind this co-operative effort grew from the realisation that the culture had changed and for many of us that meant that we were on our own.
It seemed to us that a seismic systemic failure across the entire landscape had occurred and that our former leaders, those who had taken us to this place were the last ones likely to get us out of the mess. No point in waiting for things to get better, they won’t, so have some fun.
We were without funds but we still had our wits, so we pooled our treasure, our energy, and embraced our future rather than wait for the past to resurrect itself. Was it not an illusion anyway?

Concept.

We are the post modern Irish, so we redesign the elements of our heritage to our own image. We present the writers, the musicians, the sports figures, the disparate elements which never disappointed us during THE GREAT DELUSION.

Artists are invited to draw their notion of our Irish Icons and show them at The Factory and present limited edition paraphernalia to seek to make the effort self supporting. A bit like flogging the family jewels.

Products:

The Icon Factory sells original artist artworks at a reasonable price. We specialise in irish icons and limited edition runs.
Products include original artworks, signed prints, tee-shirts, mugs, coasters, place-mats,  mouse-mats, posters and many other items.
See our SHOP section for a list of all products.

In Conclusion.

The Celtic Tiger turned out to be a pussy cat so now its time for Gaelic Lions to roar, to roam the midland boglands and the sidewalks of Temple Bar.

EMAIL: iconfactorydublin@gmail.com

WHERE IS THE ICON WALK?

Temple Bar, Dublin 2 – Just off Fleet Street
(Behind the Temple Bar Hotel, The Hard Rock Cafe and The Morgan Hotel)

Look For – Aston Place, Bedford Lane and Price’s Lane for the Icon Walk.

Without a doubt The Icon Factory nominate Philo as the Icon of the year for 2011.

Images of Philo (New and Old) were everywhere in Dublin, from our own images on the Icon Walk to the multitude of images associated with the brilliant Phil Lynott Exhibition in the Stephen’s Green Centre to the many Philo paste-ups found all over town.
Like his music, Phil’s spirit is still with us and was to be found everywhere in Dublin this year, from radio speakers to traffic light boxes.

Philo, we salute you.
Much missed, never forgotten,
The Boy WAS Back In Town.

God bless Philo.

UNESCO City Of Literature Award for The Icon Walk

We are very pleased to accept UNESCO City of Literature approval for The Icon Walk (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). This is a unique honour and we are deeply grateful! We would like to use this opportunity to expand the foot print of our investigation in to the genesis of our special Irish Culture by including several more aspects.

Congratulations to all the Artists who donated their work to this project. They largely go unpraised but later this week we will list them all. They were here before there was a here, and we want to praise their foresight and generosity in making the backstreets and laneways of Temple Bar an oasis of Art , Culture, Education something that got forgotten in the rush for profits elsewhere in the area. The Walk was created without support from those who could have done better, given a little.

UNESCO: http://www.dublincityofliterature.ie/

For more information on the Icon Walk – click here

CAN YOU NAME ALL POET & NOVELIST ICONS?

 (see below for answers!)

IRISH POETS AND NOVELISTS

In dividing our writers into categories of playwrights, poets and novelists, many of them are done a disservice as almost all o them wrote in more than one medium. Beckett is almost as well known for his novels as his plays, while Joyce did publish verse and drama. Wilde in addition to his plays is celebrated for his poetry and children’s fiction. However their images on this wall are placed where they made their greatest contribution.

The first image is of Raftery, a blind Gaelic Poet/Seanchai (traditional Irish storyteller/historian) (1784 – 1834) who is honoured as a way of reminding us all of the contribution our native language has made to our Anglo-Saxon literature. Raftery is often quoted by politicians to prove their Gaelic bona fides. (Perhaps if you meet one of these politicians, it would be a good time to check your wallet and count your fingers).

A second reason this was done was to banish misconception about the reputation of our writers and that is to make it clear that when people talk about great Irish writers, they were mostly poets and playwrights not novelists. When a list was published of the 100 best novels in English, of the 20th Century, only two Irish born writers made the list, James Joyce (three titles) and Iris Murdoch, and as she left Ireland as a child, no one considers her an Irish writer.

A word here about the writings of Joyce and Beckett and why some people seem deterred from reading them. It seems an opinion has emerged that they are inaccessible to the average reader and that you need an academic, usually an American but sometimes a Trinity professor to guide you. Beckett, also a Trinity College teacher said “It contains the cream of Ireland – rich and thick“. Still think you need them?

Anyone can read a story but in great literature the writer can be found all over the page, even between the lines. It seemed that Joyce wanted the Irish to recognise that an acceptable life was not available in Ireland, that the Irish DNA was flawed and that those in power would always look to restrict and betray them, “Do you know what Ireland is?” Joyce asked, “Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow“. The events of the last decade would suggest he was onto something. His conviction grew out of the politics of his father, who was a Charles Parnell supporter, who was deeply affected by his betrayal by the Church and the Irish themselves. It is an issue visited in all his books. “Poor Parnell” He (Mr. Casey) cried loudly. “My dead king!” He sobbed loudly and bitterly. Stephen (Joyce as a child), raising his terror stricken face, saw his father’s eyes were full of tears.” – Portrait Of The Artist.

Beckett seemed to be even more pessimistic than Joyce and he saw his mission was to warn us not to be fooled by the illusion that happiness was available anywhere. Beckett’s mother and emotional problems as a result of his birth and did not bond with him. She also removed all intimacy from her husband.

The father took the son for long walks while he ranted about the lack of a relationship with his wife. This conversation must have sounded indecipherable to the boy as do many of Beckett’s plays to his audience. Children who do not bond with their mother have lives which tend to be very grey emotionally, lacking heat or colour. As with Autism, they have a different emotional calculus. Beckett went on to live with an older woman who was not exactly a barrel of laughs. She took the phonecall that informed them of Samuel’s Nobel Prize. “This is a disaster, our lives are ruined” she responded.

In the eighties, Beckett was invited to Germany to direct “Waiting For Godot”. When presented with the script which he had not read in many years he exclaimed; “This thing needs a good edit”. And this was his masterpiece! The alchemy of the theatre is what makes the writer’s experience available, and more so the greater the writer. Joyce and Beckett whom have few equals, availed of them.

POETS & NOVELISTS IRISH ICONS:

1.  RAFTERY

Artwork By: Dan Roe (Contact:eornad@gmail.com)

Antoine Ó Raifteiri AKA Anthony Raftery (1779 or 1784 – 1835)

Notable Works:

• Aisling an Bháis (Raftery’s vision of death)
• Anach Cuan  (Annaghdown)
• An Eaglais Ghallda (The English Church)
• Baile Locha Riach (Loughrea)
• Deireadh Dan (The Last Poem)
• Máire Ní hEidhin (Mary Hynes)
• Mise Raifteirí (I’m Raftery)
• Na Buachaillí Bána (The White Boys)
• Anois teacht an tEarraigh (Spring Is Coming)
• Na Scoileanna Nua (The New Schools)

2.  SEAMUS HEANEY

Artwork By: Geraldine McGowan (Contact:gerriemcgowan@hotmail.com)

Seamus Heaney (April 13th 1939 – )

Notable Poems:

• Mid-Term Break
• Digging
• Blackberry-Picking
• Follower
• Death Of A Naturalist
• The Early Purges
• Strange Fruit
• Requiem for the Croppies
• Limbo
• The Grauballe Man
• The Tollund Man
• Act of Union
• Personal Helicon
• The Perch
• Twice Shy
• Anahorish
• Bogland
• Casualty
• Postscript
• Keeping Going
• The Harvest Bow
• From The Frontier Of Writing
• The Otter
• Testimony
• Mossbawn: Two Poems in Dedication
• Docker
• Exposure
• Lovers on Aran
• Song
• Rite of Spring

3.  PATRICK KAVANAGH

Artwork By: Geraldine McGowan (Contact: gerriemcgowan@hotmail.com)

Patrick Kavanagh (October 24th 1904 – November 30th 1967)

Notable Poems:

•   Wet Evening in April
•   To the Man After the Harrow
•   Stony Grey Soil
•   Shancoduff
•   Primrose
•   Peace
•   On Raglan Road
•   On An Apple-Ripe September Morning
•   Memory of my Father
•   March
•   Kerr’s Ass
•   Innocence
•   Inniskeen Road: July Evening
•   In Memory Of My Mother
•   Gospel
•   Epic
•   Canal Bank Walk
•   April Dusk
•   Advent
•   A Star

Notable Prose:

•   Tarry Flynn
•   The Green Fool

4. FLANN O’BRIEN

Artwork By: Sean Lennon (Contact: seanjlennon@gmail.com )

FLANN O’BRIEN (Real Name: Brian O’Nolan – AKA Myles na gCopaleen) (October 5th 1911 – April 1st 1966)

Notable Works:

• At Swim-Two-Birds
• The Hard Life
• The Dalkey Archive
• The Third Policeman
• An Béal Bocht / The Poor Mouth (as Myles na gCopaleen)

5.  JAMES JOYCE

Artwork By: Sean Lennon (Contact: seanjlennon@gmail.com )

James Joyce (February 2nd 1882 –  January 13th 1941 )

Notable Works:

• Dubliners
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
• Exiles and poetry
• Ulysses
• Finnegans Wake

6. EDNA O”BRIEN

Artwork By: Geraldine McGowan (Contact:gerriemcgowan@hotmail.com )

Maud Gonne (December 15th 1930 – )

Notable Works:

• The Country Girls Trilogy
• August Is a Wicked Month
• Casualties of Peace
• The Love Object
• A Pagan Place
• Zee & Co.
• Night
• A Scandalous Woman and Other Stories
• Mother Ireland
• Johnny I Hardly Knew You
• Mrs Reinhardt and Other Stories
• Some Irish Loving
• Returning (short stories)
• A Fanatic Heart (short stories)
• The High Road
• On the Bone (poetry)
• Lantern Slides (short stories)
• Time and Tide
• House of Splendid Isolation
• Down by the River
• James Joyce (biography)
• Wild Decembers
• In the Forest
• The Light of Evening
• Haunted (play),
• Byron in Love (biography)
• Saints and Sinners (short stories)

7. BRAM STOKER

Artwork By: Sean lennon (Contact: seanjlennon@gmail.com )

Bram Stoker (November 8th  1847 – April 20th 1912 )

Notable Works:

• The Primrose Path
• The Snake’s Pass
• The Watter’s Mou’
• The Shoulder of Shasta
• Dracula
• Miss Betty
• The Mystery of the Sea
• The Jewel of Seven Stars
• The Man (aka: The Gates of Life)
• Lady Athlyne
• The Lady of the Shroud
• The Lair of the White Worm (aka: The Garden of Evil)
• Under the Sunset (fairy tales)
• Snow Bound: The Record of a Theatrical Touring Party (short stories)
• Dracula’s Guest and Other Weird Stories

8. WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Artwork By: Sean Lennon (Contact: seanjlennon@gmail.com )

William Butler Yeats (June 13th 1865 – January 28th 1939 )

Notable Works:

• Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
• The Celtic Twilight
• The Countess Cathleen
• Discoveries (Essays)
• Four Years
• The Green Helmet and Other Poems
• The Hour Glass
• Ideas of Good and Evil
• In The Seven Woods
• The Land of Heart’s Desire
• Mosada
• Per Amica Silentia Lunae
• Responsibilities and other poems
• Reveries over Childhood and Youth
• Rosa Alchemica
• The Secret Rose
• Seven Poems and a Fragment
• Stories of Red Hanrahan
• Synge and the Ireland of His Time
• The Trembling of the Veil
• Two plays for dancers
• The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays
• The Wild Swans at Coole
• The Wind Among the Reeds

CAN YOU NAME ALL  IRISH PLAYWRIGHTS ICONS?

(see below for answers!)

THE PLAY WRITERS

The Pen Versus The Sword

Around 1610, Shakespeare wrote the “The Tempest” and retired to Stratford on Avon where he died in 1613. Queen Elizabeth I having completed the conquest of Ireland was dead. The last of the great leaders, O’Neill and O’Donnell were gone to Spain and Ulster planted with Crown subjects.

Between 1613 and the War Of independence in 1922, which won back self rule for most of Ireland, no play of real merit was written in the English language by anyone other than by an Irish-born writer.

…Now, riddle me this! Who conquered who?

THE PLAYWRIGHT ICONS:

1.  SAMUEL BECKETT

Artwork By: Aga Szot (Contact: aguszot@gmail.com)

Samuel Beckett (April 13th 1906 – December 22nd 1989)

Notable Plays:

• Waiting for Godot
• Act Without Words I
• Act Without Words II
• Endgame
• Krapp’s Last Tape
• Rough for Theatre II
• Happy Days
• Play
• Come and Go
• Breath
• Not I
• That Time
• Footfalls
• A Piece of Monologue
• Rockaby
• Ohio Impromptu
• Catastrophe
• What Where

Notable Novels & Novellas:

• Dream of Fair to Middling Women
• Murphy
• Watt
• Mercier and Camier
• Molloy
• Malone Dies
• The Unnamable
• How It Is
• The Lost Ones
• Company
• Ill Seen Ill Said
• Worstward Ho

2.  BRENDAN BEHAN

Artwork By: Aga Szot (Contact: aguszot@gmail.com)

Brendan Behan (February 9th 1923 – March 20th 1964)

Notable Plays:

• The Quare Fellow
• The Hostage
• Richard’s Cork Leg

Notable Novels:

• Borstal Boy
• Brendan Behan’s Island
• Hold Your Hour and Have Another
• Brendan Behan’s New York
• Confessions of an Irish Rebel
• The Scarperer

3. SEAN O’CASEY

Artwork By: Aga Szot (Contact: aguszot@gmail.com)

Sean O’Casey (March 30th 1880 – September 18th 1964 )

Notable Plays:

• The Shadow of a Gunman
• Juno and the Paycock
• The Plough and the Stars
• The Silver Tassie
• The End of the Beginning
• Red Roses for Me
• Cock-a-Doodle Dandy

4.  GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Artwork By: Aga Szot (Contact: aguszot@gmail.com)

George Bernard Shaw (July 26th 1856  - November 2nd 1950)

Notable Plays:

• Arms and the Man
• Candida
• The Man of Destiny
• You Never Can Tell
• The Devil’s Disciple
• Caesar and Cleopatra
• Captain Brassbound’s Conversion
• The Admirable Bashville
• Man and Superman
• John Bull’s Other Island
• Major Barbara
• The Doctor’s Dilemma
• Getting Married
• Misalliance
• The Dark Lady of the Sonnets
• Fanny’s First Play
• Androcles and the Lion
• Pygmalion
• Heartbreak House
• Back to Methuselah
• Saint Joan
• The Apple Cart
• In Good King Charles’s Golden Days
• Shakes versus Shav

5.  JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE

Artwork By: Aga Szot (Contact: aguszot@gmail.com)

John Millington Synge (April 16th 1871 –  March 24th 1909)

Notable Plays:

• In the Shadow of the Glen
• Riders to the Sea
• The Well of the Saints
• The Playboy of the Western World
• The Tinker’s Wedding
• Deirdre of the Sorrows

6. OSCAR WILDE

Artwork By: Aga Szot (Contact: aguszot@gmail.com)

Oscar Wilde (October 16th 1854 – November 30th 1900)

Notable Plays:

• A Woman of No Importance
• An Ideal Husband
• Lady Windermere’s Fan
• Salome
• The Importance of Being Earnest

Notable Works:

• The Happy Prince and Other Stories
• The Picture of Dorian Gray
• The Ballad of Reading Gaol (poem)