Tale of the Tongs

Mayo, Mayo, Ireland

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Tale of the Tongs

Mayo, Mayo, Ireland

Firm

Spirit of Place - Spirit of Design

Type

Cultural › Memorial

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2013

SIZE

0 sqft - 1000 sqft

BUDGET

$100K - 500K

Photos

Michael Mc Laughlin (3)

“Tale of the Tongs” Inishturk Island Commons

“Whispering flames revealing our breaths held yearning anew,
Rekindled aroma of the tongs echoes our burning embrace in view”

Inishturk translates in Gaelic as “Island of the Wild Boar”. Located nine miles off the western coast of County Mayo, it is laden with rich archaeological sites. Inishturk has been inhabited on and off since 4000 B.C. As part of The Great Ireland Gathering of 2013, the Tale of the Tongs project commemorates those families who have resided on Inishturk for generations, those that inhabited the island for more than 6,000 years, as well as those who emigrated from Inishturk and Ireland to all corners of the globe. The commons land was our site donated for the Tale of the Tongs project by the people of Inishturk in 2013. The Gathering began and the Irish came home to water their roots.
The Tale of the Tongs represents centuries of cultural gatherings on Inishturk as a shrine, a respite, a viewing and resting point. It is a spiritual and cultural focus point representing the global Irish diaspora. It is a place which unites the Druidic and the Christian traditions in the shadow of Croagh Patrick — a mountain in County Mayo where St. Patrick fasted for 40 days during the 5th century. The Tale of the Tongs is a place to re-connect and to re-kindle Irish heritage: the fires, the hearth, and the “tongs of reunion.”
When one was leaving home in the days of the famine to board a coffin boat to the Americas or work in a British Coal mine, it was the custom to gather up a coal with the tongs from one’s fireplace and take that burning coal to the fire of a relative or friend’s home fire. One would place the hot coal in their loved ones fire and leave the tongs next to the fire. This was the promise, that upon the day one would-might return home, one would take back the tongs left behind and re-gather a coal from the family fire to take back to rekindle one’s own fire again.
The modern installation was constructed in 9 days by students alongside local craftsmen led by Danny O’Toole of Inishturk. Local stone, glass and stainless steel, using both traditional and modern building methods created the “Acropolis of Ireland”, a nickname by locals that keeps sticking. A major documentary film, “Tale of the Tongs” was made about the making of the project by Judith Dwan Hallet and Stanley Hallet, FAIA. The 2013 SPSD project was led in conjunction with the National Geographic Society’s Human Genome Project as part of The Gathering Ireland 2013 in concert with Mayo County Council and Failte Ireland.
The Tale of the Tongs project was inspired by the common poem written by the students below. The poem and names of all involved with the project are engraved upon the stainless steel fire cover inside the temple structure. The temple itself has curved columns reflecting the shape of the tongs. The ribbed roofing is designed to allow smoke to drift out and prevent rain from sifting in. The surrounding glass columns in the landscape are dedicated to the clans of Inishturk whereas the free standing benches and stone objects are dedicated to those lost by memory and those coming to be on the island. They all appear to gather around the tong temple. The flowing rock patterns stir one’s eyes toward the flow of the sea tides and the great Irish islands that float upon them. Rekindling the “ fire “ of the hearth as in the tales of tongs brings us inward to the warmth and shelter of the heart and hearth.