Thincke & Thancke Garden at South Reen

Thincke & Thancke Garden at South Reen

Thincke & Thancke Garden at South Reen

In August 2022, at the West Cork History Festival John Kelly presented this video on the Thincke & Thancke Garden that the artist has been creating for over a decade on the South Reen peninsula in West Cork, Ireland. The garden features the Nicholas Marshall Cummins letter, etched in Irish Limestone that was addressed to the Duke of Wellington and published in The Times on Christmas Eve 1846. The letter was a plea for aid to assist the starving inhabitants of the village which once occupied the land on which the garden sits during An Gorta Mór (The Great Hunger). The letter is encased in a glass simulacrum of the “Tate Modern” accompanied by the Quaker Phoenix ‘famine’ soup pot found on the property in 2003 when the artist purchased the property. This presentation features Sir Bob Geldof reading the N.M. Cummins’ letter, his personal response to the garden, and the horrific and tragic history that occurred where an entire village was wiped off the map.

bob geldof

West Cork History Festival 2022 Thincke & Thancke Garden (ft. Bob Geldof)

Jeremy Irons reads N. M. Cummins' Letter and Stephen Spender poem at Thincke & Thancke Garden

Thincke & Thancke Garden

In July 2018, actor Jeremy Irons visited the Thincke & Thancke garden and read Stephen Spender’s poem, The Truly Great, followed by the N.M. Cummins letter describing the tragic history of the South Reen peninsula, West Cork, during An Gorta Mór.

jeremy irons

Bob Geldof recalls famine atrocities on visit to Skibbereen

Online article by John O’Sullivan, 2021

Ardmayle_ 2021 - ardmayle.blogspot.com

PDF is also here; original article here.

Sticks and Stones

Tate at South Reen

Irish Landscapes

'The Garden Shed', from the Visual Artists' News Sheet, 2011

garden shed

PDF also here

Pandemonium

Pandemonium

PDF also here

Glass Tate installation, 11 October 2012

Glass Tate installation, 11 October 2012

Glass Tate installation, 11 October 2012
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