Greystones Artist Creates Iranian Schoolchildren Memorial

Brian Hackett at his Ballylongford workshop. Pic: Jack Joy

riginally from Greystones but now based in the wilds of Kerry, Brian Hackett felt he had to respond to the bombing of an Iranian school by US forces on February 28th.

And so the metalsmith artist turned to the one sure way he had of expressing his grief by creating a sculpture.

Entitled Minab, after the town where the school was located, Brian has mounted the piece outside his workshop in Ballylongford, along with flags for both Palestine and Iran.

“I obviously don’t want to offend anyone with flags,” he told Jack Joy in The Kerryman. “If anyone asks me to put them down I don’t mind, but the sculpture is staying.

“I never collected flags in my life. It’s just a reaction of horror, what’s happened with Gaza, and it’s not stopping either.”

Having made his name over the past 30 years through his handcrafted jewellery, a recent restrictive illness has seen Mary Hackett’s favourite son turning his attention to bronze. Living in Ballylongford for three years now, those smithing skills have created a whole new career.

And a whole new life of being truly settled, travel having long been a passion of Brian’s, even taking him to Iran in 2009.

The Greystones Years. Pic Jack Clarke

“The nicest people you could ever meet – the generosity and the hospitality is unreal. They’re delighted to meet someone from any other country.

Brian also found the Iranian people to be very aware.

“When you mentioned Ireland, the most frequent thing they know about is Bobby Sands. Martyrs is something in their culture. But they’re very wise, very patient, very clever with words. There’s no tricks…”

Happy to be living the quiet life in Ballylongford these days, the 60-year-old artist spends his days creating new works alongside his trusty dog, Fionn, and, he says, a friendly murder of crows.

As to the bronze sculpture, “The flowers are saw blades. Everything is sharp, sharp, sharp.

“The exact opposite to anything I’ve ever thought of making. It was a reaction…”