Hyrdo powered art installation due to launch on North Leitrim river

The hydro-powered art installation will be launched on the Owenmore River on Friday, January 23rd

The North Leitrim Sustainable Energy Community is due to unveil an interactive sustainable art installation on a Hydro-powered eel on the Owenmore River in January.

The temporary installation will take place on Friday, January 23rd, with a gathering at the Carrat Studios, across from the Manorhamilton Library, followed by a short walk to the bridge to view the Eel.

In June, the group began holding workshops where they made artworks that celebrated collective action in the fight against environmental decay, remembering the anti-fracking movement in the area.

They made sustainable props for a protest against gold mining in the Sperrin mountains last August, before moving on to this installation.

The group says the project was aimed at “strengthening community resilience through creative engagement.”

The group decided to create a sustainable art installation that draws on the “parallels between the power and potential of community when it comes together in resistance, with the power and potential of the natural world; both in terms of renewable energies and in terms of deep ecology.”

The group, along with multi-disiplinary artist, Robert Ireson, decided the sculpture would a large inflatable eel, representing an ancient Legend in Leitrim, where the O’Rourke clan had an enchanted Eel, which would rise up to warn them whenever they were in danger.

The installation will also use the hydro power of the river it is floating on to generate electricity and light up sustainably.

It will be situated at Whitaker’s bridge on the Carrick Road, and use hydro power from the Owenmore River in an acknowledgement of the hydro turbine nearby, which powered Manorhamilton’s street lights and some homes and businesses from 1905 to 1946.