Patrick Comerford
Portobello has become an attractive area to live in. It has interesting shops and independent restaurants, it is just around the corner from Camden Street with its food shops and bookshops, and it is 15 minutes from Grafton Street and Saint Stephen’s Green.
I was strolling through Portobello while I was staying in Rathmines last week, searching for family homes associated with the Levitas, Kernoff and Comerford families in the narrow streets of ‘Little Jerusalem’, squeezed between Clanbrassil Street and Richmond Street, between the South Circular Road and the Grand Canal.
A large, colourful mural on Longwood Avenue honouring the life and work of David Attenborough has survived all the legal and official attempts to have it removed. It was painted on a large gable wall on a house on South Circular Road, close to Leonard’s Corner by the Dublin artist collective Subset painted and was unveiled on 8 May 2018 to mark the 93rd birthday of the naturalist and broadcaster.
The mural features a greyscale portrait that captures the personality of the BBC documentary maker and climate activist. Around his face is a burst of beautiful colour and animal life, from butterflies to a hot pink parrot. He has his signature khaki jacket and hat, standing next to a group of animals, including a penguin, a lion, and an elephant.
The mural is vibrantly coloured and features a stylised depiction of the natural world. Residents supposedly gave the artists the go ahead but the mural was controversial from the start as it was painted without planning permission. Dublin City Council ordered its removal in November 2019, and a spokeswoman said the council was seeking ‘the permanent removal of the unauthorised painted mural’ where the piece is based, and that no further murals or art should be painted on the wall.
The decision was met with widespread public opposition. A petition to save the mural attracted over 10,000 signatures. When the prosecution of Subset for this and two other prominent street murals came before Dublin District Court, the case adjourned. Eventually, in June 2022, the council dropped the case.
The David Attenborough Mural is now a popular tourist attraction in Portobello and a reminder of the city’s vibrant street art scene and its appreciation for the natural world.
The mural was the second piece by Subset to fall foul of the council’s planning department within the space of a few weeks. A case involving the group’s ‘Horseboy’ mural in Smithfield was referred to An Bord Pleanála after the council ruled that it needed planning permission to remain on a property on Church Street.
Other artworks by Subset that were the subject of enforcement orders by Dublin City Council, including the Stormzy mural in late 2017.
The area around Richmond Street, close to Portobello Bridge, was once a colourful area for street art on a much larger scale. But many of the buildings are now being demolished and some of the better graffiti is fading, soon to be lost the latest property developments.
One fading work, now behind hoarding and fencing, is an image of Daniel O’Connell (1775-1847). His heart was once visible in vivid red. It was a reminder that when O’Connell died in Genoa on a pilgrimage to Rome in May 1847, his body was brought back to Dublin and buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, but his heart was removed, embalmed and entrusted to the Irish College in Rome.
O’Connell’s heart has faded away in Richmond Street, but it has also gone from sight in Rome. It was believed to be in an urn, before being placed behind a marble plaque in the wall of the church. But when the Irish College was moving from the Church of Saint Agatha in 1927, the heart and urn were missing. The whereabouts of O’Connell’s heart remains unknown, and all that remains in the Church of St Agata del Got today is a plaster cast of his heart by the Irish artist Claire Halpin that is now on exhibition.
There seems to be some poetic message in the fact that this piece of street art is about to be lost as this month has marked the 250th of the birth of Daniel O’Connell on 6 August 1775.
Among his many political roles and achievements, he was also Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1841-1842. I wonder what he would make of the City Council’s efforts to control the place and subject of street art in Dublin?
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