It is not hard to imagine flying horses, hissing and frothing on a wild and windy day at Keem Bay, way down at the west end of Achill Island. Just up the road, a more sedentary winged horse, Pegasus, is being created in a studio by sculptor Ronan Halpin. Later this year, it will ultimately make its maiden voyage in a huge ship’s container, destined for Dallas, Texas. It is his third commission from the Billingsley Company, a family-run business whose “new urbanism” underscores its master-planned communities.
They comprise houses and apartments, hotels, offices, shops, with each developments defined by a number of commissioned sculptures, both exterior and interior, as well as parks, trails and public spaces.
It was by chance that Lucy and Henry Billingsley came across a maquette (miniature) of another of Halpin’s iconic flying horses while holidaying in the west of Ireland in the summer of 2018. The Sentinel, which overlooks Westport, was commissioned by the town council after the tourism town won The Irish Times Best Place to Live in Ireland inaugural award in 2012. Standing on an elevated plinth 20ft high, and made of bronze and steel, it intimates the prow of a ship as it depicts a spirit horse and rider pointing the way to holy mountain Croagh Patrick.
Little did Halpin think at the time that a miniature of his work, inspired by the wild seascapes of Achill, would lead to his first sculpture for the Billingsleys. Icarus now stands on the side of an artificial lake in sun-scorched Texas.
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“I guess they liked my work and they asked me to submit some proposals for a large outdoor piece. They commissioned Icarus in 2019 for one of their developments at Cypress Waters, Dallas,” says Halpin.
Standing on a Corten steel base, and made of stainless steel and bronze, Icarus is 30ft high and overlooks the artificial lake on the edge of this development.
“I see it as a vulnerable figure, almost ready to take the leap into the air, but one of its wings is already broken,” he says.
The second commission was dispatched last June and is yet to be installed in a foyer of one of the Billingsley office developments. Called The Torc Boat, it resembles a bronze age amulet standing on six oars with a tree bearing fruit.
“The boat symbolises journeying with its precious cargo onboard,” he says.
Meanwhile, Halpin is preoccupied by Pegasus and very much grounded in his studio as he completes the painstaking process of “texturing and finessing” its polystyrene core with plaster of Paris before he dispatches its body, head and limbs to the foundry in Foxford. There, the next stage of its journey to Dallas will be completed with the help of Tim Morris, son of another Achill artist, Camille Souter.
For this project, he fully embraced the time-saving new technology available and, after making the maquette, brought it to Odyssey Studios in Limerick, where it was 3D scanned and then enlarged to 15ft in polystyrene.
“Once I bring it to the foundry, the moulds will be taken for the final casting in bronze and then it is on to Cisco Engineering in Drogheda where the internal stainless steel structure will be made. The wings will be fabricated separately,” Halpin says.
He says there is “always a certain amount of organic development” in this final process, which should be completed later this year.
“Pegasus will be the signature feature of a Billingsley project, which is exciting,” Halpin adds.
However, it will be making a two-month sea voyage first, from Dublin to Amsterdam, and on to Florida, before sailing down to the upper Texas gulf coast. Indeed, the untamed vistas of Achill Island – the polkas of sea surges at the Minaun Cliffs and the Cathedral Rocks – may be far from its final home, but they will inhabit the spirit of Pegasus as it stands in the sunshine of another world.
