What is recorded here

Half a kilometre east of the Mutton Island causeway, four boulder rings and a central core still mark the tide line where Jupiter once hung in Galway Bay. Padraig Conway and Martin Byrne built the planet in 1993, using sand bands and seaweed-darkened stones large enough for a child to run around like a chariot wheel. The western twin vanished when the causeway was cut, but the eastern rings keep their distance from one another, waiting for the bay to withdraw and reveal the sky they borrowed.

This is one of three intertidal art installations (see also GA094-141---- and GA094-142----) that were constructed in the early 1990s along the shoreline in the inner reaches of Galway Bay, below the High Water Mark, c. 50m to the E of the causeway leading out to Mutton Island. It was designed by Padraig Conway and Martin Byrne as part of the 'Solas Atlantis Galway 1993' project (http://www.carrowkeel.com/files/art/rubbings/index.htm accessed 25 August 2015) and it appeared on the 1995 Galway Arts Festival poster by Ted Turton. It represents the planet Jupiter. It is visible on the OSi Orthophoto 1995 as a conjoined feature made up of a series of rings: the E example has four rings, while the W example appears to have up to five rings. Only traces of the E half of the E example survive (see http://binged.it/1LPr7Gj). The W example was probably destroyed when the causeway out to Mutton Island was constructed. The extant remains (14.7m E-W) consist of a central core of boulders, four bands of sands and four rings of boulders, which are visible from N to E to SSW. The central core of boulders (Wth 4.7m; H 0.1-0.15m) is covered with seaweed. Moving westwards from it there is a band of sand (Wth 0.7m), a ring of boulders (Wth 1.4m), sand (Wth 1.1m); a second ring of boulders (Wth 1.4m), sand (Wth 0.6m), a third ring (Wth 2m), sand (Wth 1.1m) and a fourth ring (Wth 1.7m). All the rings of boulders are also covered with seaweed. Compiled by: Olive Alcock Date of upload: 25 August 2015

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