Voyage

The Ship - Hughie O'Donoghue, 2022

On this day, a pathway down to a rocky shore led me to the beached wreck of the MV Plassy. The black and white paintwork was still vividly strong at this point and this colouring made the ship stand out from the subtle variegated greens and greys of the stone walls and the fields and the infinite tones of blue and turquoise of the sunlit Atlantic Ocean, an unexpected and incongruous presence, perched precariously on the rocks.

Remnants of the last cargo spewed out onto the shore, shotgun shell cartridges and broken debris of uncertain purpose. The ship had floundered some 15 months earlier in an Atlantic storm off the coast of the smallest of the Aran Islands, Inis Oirr, in atrocious weather and poor visibility, Plassy ran aground on the Finis Rock shortly after 5am on Tuesday 8 March 1960. Over the years things have changed, the rusting twisted metal taking on a phosphorescent glow, giving the vessel the appearance of a large sculpture, more site-specific than any artist could hope to achieve, witnessing its own demise, changing and altering form every year, like ourselves and like ourselves will at some point disappear.

PUBLICATION: Voyage