By Cathy Power
HITCH-HIKERS are a rare sight these days, but motorists travelling on the M7 between Monasterevin and Montague were used to seeing a piece of sculpture which represented the custom, fast disappearing from Irish roads.
Unfortunately, Willie Malone’s massive bronze sculpture, called The Hitch-hiker, has disappeared too.
It was 12ft high and on a 3ft plinth and sat at Mooreabbey Demesne beside the motorway- until it was stolen.
No one can confirm exactly when the piece of art disappeared, but sculptor Willie Malone said: “From what I can see, a day or two before that weekend,” because that was when the calls from friends began.
On Friday (4 March) a friend called him and asked had his sculpture been removed, then another rang and said they could not find the piece of public art, which had been commissioned by Kildare Co Council under the Percent for Art scheme.
Willie got in his car and drove down to the site, to find his work of art had been cut from its base, leaving eight inches of bronze behind.
“I drove across to Kildare straight away and half-a-mile from the site I could see it was gone. The photo shows how it was cut with an angle grinder eight inches up from the base flange. It was crudely done, hacked at really and taken by people just for the scrap value,” he said.
It was put on the site, just inside the Kildare-Laois border, before the River Barrow crossing, in 2005 and cost €54,000. It is estimated by the artist that it would now be worth up to €30,000 as scrap metal.
The tonne weight of the bronze suggests that a crane was used to shift it.
Willie Malone, who runs Kilmainham Art Foundry, is very upset at the theft of his artwork. “I put a lot of work into that and I hoped that my great-grandchildren would be able to go along and see it,” he told the Kildare Nationalist, a week after the theft was discovered.
“This is and always will be a very special piece for me. It was wonderful to be one of six short listed by Kildare County Council. That alone was a huge win for me.”.
Breda Brady of Kildare Co Council’s arts service confirmed that her office had received the report of the missing statue from the artist on Monday (6 March).
“It was a professional setup,” she said. “They went to so much bother to take it. It was a big operation but it was made of bronze and so it is worth a lot of money, even melted down.”
She added that the thieves destroyed the art work, which suggests that it was to be sold as scrap metal rather than for its artistic merit.
Gardaí at Monasterevin, 045 525322, would be interested in talking to anyone who may have witnessed the theft of the sculpture or any suspicious activity around the area last week. Meanwhile, if you are offered a large quantity of bronze at a cheap price, let the gardaí know.