Pikemen to get new home on roundabout
The Pikemen of Barntown are on the march after the District Council unveiled a new plan for the landscaping of two of the three roundabouts on Wexford’s Ring Road.
Landscape architects Derek Howlin and Darragh Hilliard came up with new designs for the green areas in the middle of the New Ross Road and Rosslare Road roundabouts utilising plants that reflect the locality and will give colour all year round. The local authority intends to sell advertising rights on the roundabouts to cover the cost of the project.
The newly-elected Mayor of Wexford, Tony Dempsey, has offered his own input by proposing that the Pikemen statue on the N25, be relocated to the middle of the New Ross Road roundabout where he believes it would enjoy more public impact.
The bronze monument created by the late sculptor Eamonn O’Doherty who was also responsible for many public works of art in Ireland, including the Annalivia ‘floozie in the jacuzzi’ water feature in Dublin, commemmorates the Battle of the Three Rocks at Forth Mountain which was a famous Irish victory during the 1798 Rebellion.
It is to be moved from the Barntown site where it was installed in 1998 during the bicentenary of the uprising.
District Engineer Sean Kavanagh referred to Mayor Dempsey’s proposal as he presented a sample artist’s impression of the New Ross roundabout, featuring trees, grasses, hedgerows, holly and ferns from Forth Mountain, with the outer edge of the circle finished in concrete and gravel.
The landscaped Rosslare Road roundabout will have a sea theme with a feature replicating the wreck of a boat beached on gravel. The Duncannon Road roundabout will be completed at a later stage.
The cost of planting and maintaining the roundabouts has become unsustainable at an annual cost of €16,000 a year plus watering, while the District Council’s total allocation for national road maintenance for 2018 is €70,000.
Mr. Kavanagh said he hopes to present a detailed planting plan in August with a view to tendering for the work in September and having a target for completion by the end of this year or early 2019.