That’s Crawfordly loud

A hauntingly familiar sound will resonate across Cork city next week when an artist marks 11 years since the last foghorn sounded from an Irish lighthouse.

Found Sound (Lost at Sea) 11.1.11 is a sound installation by Danny McCarthy which plans to shake window panes in the city and beyond from Emmet Place next Tuesday. The installation will commemorate the eleventh anniversary of the last foghorn sounding from Irish lighthouses along the Irish coast when they ceased on 11 January 2011.

The project was created as a result of McCarthy’s interest in acoustic ecology and is set to sound throughout the day as a reminder of what was once imperative soundtrack to daily life. McCarthy’s work, which has recently joined the national collection, is unique to Crawford Art Gallery’s context.

The gallery was originally built in 1724 as Cork’s Custom House and the sound installation recalls its ties to the city’s commercial success, since the eighteenth century, as a key port to the Americas and beyond. Crawford Art Gallery invites visitors to witness the echo of a once ever-present sound.