Photo courtesy G. Willoughby
Artist Dan Leo was born in London in 1984, before moving to Ireland at a young age. He admits to having always a keen interest in art; his enthusiasm growing from his consumption of 90s cartoons and having a keen interest in American sports logos and graphic design.
His style has evolved over the years, as he moves forward exploring new approaches as well as improving on existing ones.
Animals have always been something he has had respect for and as the viewers of his work can observe; same feature almost exclusively in his work.
To Dan, nature remains a never ending source of inspiration, while painting continues to give him the opportunity to travel and meet many like minds, while allowing him to work at what he loves most.
This project is one of at least two such projects to be undertaken within the Thurles area, over the coming weeks.
Readers can view more of Dan Leo’s work by logging on HERE.
Should this mural not have been a Greyhound?
Perhaps I should explain myself.
The area where this mural is being painted was once the home of publican Larry (Lawrence) Hickey, (more recently J. Griffin’s Newsagent, Liberty Square, Thurles), same building having been demolished in June 2018, to make way for a car park.
On the night of March 9th 1921, five masked and armed policemen raided the pub of Larry Hickey. He was ordered out of his upstairs bedroom, in his night attire, together with his pregnant wife, and when he reached the top of the stairs, he was tripped and thrown down the said stairs by an R.I.C. man named Jackson.
In the fall, Hickey’s neck was broken. While he was in great pain at the foot of the stairs, Sergeant Enright, who was in charge of the raiders, shot him dead, to put an end to his agony.
Larry Hickey was a well-known republican in Thurles at this time, and a detailed account of his death was given to republican James Leahy during the truce period, by Sergeant Enright himself.
Mr Larry Hickey would have collaborated with his republican next door neighbour, Mr Mixie O’Connell, latter who sent the coded telegram with the wording, “Greyhound on train”, giving the time of the departure of the train to brothers Tom and Mick Shanahan at the Coal Stores, in Knocklong, Co. Limerick, regarding the sending of the IRA prisoner Sean Hogan to Cork city, on May 13th 1919.
Lovers of factual Thurles history can read the full story HERE and HERE.
On August 22nd, 2022, exactly 100 years ago, Michael Collins (the Big Fellow or the Long Fellow), then chairman of the provisional government of the Irish Free State, was shot dead on a roadway in the county of his birth; Co. Cork.
On Sunday last, August 21st, 2022, an Taoiseach and Tánaiste rightly addressed a crowd of thousands, who had gathered at Béal na Bláth, in Co. Cork, to commemorate the centenary of his death.
In Thurles there were no commemorations over the past number of years for those Thurles men and women, who including Loughnane, Quinn, Hickey, O’Connell (Mixie), Leahy (James), Kelly, Fitzpatrick (Bridget), Ryan (Col. Gerry), McCarthy (Goorty), or indeed Mulcahy (Richard).
But then, that is what you get when you elect public representatives including two TD’s, who are mis-informed, mendacious and self-serving.
Meanwhile, the last mentions of Peregrine falcons in Tipperary was in July/August of 2013, when 3 nesting birds were deliberately shot dead in a spate of attacks in south Tipperary; and again in Nenagh, North Co. Tipperary in 2021, latter located nesting close at the top of the spire of Nenagh’s Saint Mary of the Rosary, Catholic church.
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