The Irish sculptor John Henry Foley, below, was considered the supreme master of nineteenth century Victorian sculpture.

Sé Merry Doyle recently directed a documentary on this much-maligned sculptor which was shown on TG4 in November. To this day no other sculptor has so much work on display in Ireland but many of Foley’s works have disappeared.

After Ireland gained its independence Republicans began to attack and destroy many of Foley’s more contentious imperialist works. Foley’s equestrian statute of Viscount Gough, which stood in the Phoenix Park for seventy years was, after repeated attacks by the IRA, smuggled out of Ireland at the behest of the Irish government.

The battle-scarred statute now resides exiled on the grounds of Chillingham Castle in Northumberland. This is but one of Foley’s works featured in the film that became the subject of almost tragic comedy proportions.

Although considered a great artist, Foley has never been honoured in his native country. His association with the Empire has caused his legacy to be airbrushed out of Irish history. On his deathbed, Foley bequeathed all of his original casts and studio pieces remaining in his London studio to his native Ireland. The authorities in Dublin declined and it was not until the work was foisted upon them by the Royal Academy, London that the original casts arrived in Ireland. They were housed in the Royal Dublin Society, formerly Leinster House and Foley’s first school. Art Historian Paula Murphy and Professor John Turpin reveal how many of the works donated to the RDS have controversially disappeared.

Recognising the genius of the man, Queen Victoria insisted that Foley be given a state funeral. His grave is in the Artists’ Corner at St. Paul’s Cathedral, where he is buried alongside luminaries such as Sir Christopher Wren.
How John Henry Foley rose from a small artisan quarter in the centre of Dublin to become the most famous sculptor of public monuments and a personal friend of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert is curious in the extreme.

Many of Foley’s Irish commissions have become national treasures. Oliver Goldsmith, Daniel O’Connell and Father Mathew in Cork are proudly featured on tourist brochures and postcards, while others like Viscount Gough, Lord Dunkellin in Galway and Prince Albert in Dáil Eireann became unwanted reminders of Ireland’s colonial past and were therefore hidden from view or destroyed.

That the Empire would fracture and its monuments become destroyed or displaced was unforeseen. Nowhere was this more evident than in Ireland and India, countries where the management of imperial monuments is a contentious issue to this day.

In Dublin, the IRA blew up Foley’s statues of Lord Carlisle and Viscount Gough. The latter suffered the worst attacks. Widely regarded as one of the finest equestrian statues in the world, it was cast from 15 tonnes of gun-metal captured by Gough in India.

The ill-fated Viscount sat peacefully on his horse in the Phoenix Park until Christmas Eve 1944, when he was decapitated. The head was found several months later in the river Liffey at Islandbridge and after much ado, was restored. In the 1950s the monument was daubed with paint, and attempts were made by the IRA to blow it up.

The first attempt clipped the rear hocks from the horse, while the second attempt, using sophisticated plastic explosives, succeeded in blowing the Viscount off his mount. The State, out of exasperation, sold the remains of Gough in a private contract to Robert Guinness, with the stipulation that it be removed from Ireland immediately.

Foley’s portrait of his friend Prince Albert after independence stood at the rear entrance to Dáil Eireann. After repeated threats by Republicans, it was moved to a quiet spot to the side behind some specially-grown hedges so as to obscure the view. Foley’s Albert is now the last imperial statute standing in the centre of Dublin.

The fate of India’s imperial monuments mirrored that of Ireland’s. However, Indian nationalists did not have the same penchant for bombing as the Irish did. They decided to round up the unwanted reminders of their colonization and place them into sculptural graveyards.

In 1950 Foley’s equestrian statute of Lord Outram was given a reprieve by the Indian Government who recognized its great artistry and re-sited the statute in a prime position on the grounds of the Victorian Memorial Hall in Calcutta.

The Albert Memorial in London was undoubtedly Foley’s most prestigious work in Britain. It was originally conceived following the untimely death of the Prince Consort in 1861 and Queen Victoria insisted that the commission be given to Albert’s favorite sculptor.

While the Albert Memorial was one of Foley’s most illustrious commissions, it was also the cause of his demise. Foley, enslaved by his perfectionism, made the unwise decision by positioning himself for days at a time astride the wet clay of ‘Asia’, the sculpture at the base of the memorial, and contracted pleurisy.

Despite his illness, Foley continued working, leaving us with the final irony that, at the time of his death, the two main projects in his studio were the Prince Albert and Daniel O’Connell sculptures (the latter shown with Patrick’s Day spectators) side by side, both waiting to take their respective places in history. If only history knew where to place the man who sculpted them. Look out for the documentary which will be shown again shortly on TG4.