Joe brings art home with striking Roscommon murals

Acclaimed street artist and social activist, Joe Caslin, admits that there is “something special” about being able to showcase your work in your own home town.

Joe has been able to do exactly that with a series of striking murals dotted around Roscommon town, which he has completed in a major artistic collaboration with Roscommon County Council and the local Chamber of Commerce.

The murals, which have attracted a great deal of attention and acclaim from locals and visitors alike, feature specific drawings and figures that “reflect the county of Roscommon and its people,” he says.

The Roscommon art teacher came to national and international prominence in 2015 when he created a striking and highly-acclaimed mural called ‘The Claddagh Embrace’ which was painted onto a building at the corner of Dame Street and George's Street in Dublin and became the most potent symbol of the pro-marriage equality side in the same-sex marriage referendum campaign of the same year.

The ‘Claddagh Embrace’ mural made the front page of the international edition of The New York Times and since then Joe Caslin’s focus has predominantly been on societal issues including male mental health; suicide rates; drug addiction and Ireland’s director provision system for asylum seekers.

The son of Carmel and Leo Caslin from Eagle Court, Ardnanagh, beside the railway station in Roscommon town, Joe says he was always “interested in art” which led him into choosing a career as an art teacher.

However, his strong social conscience and his desire to create large scale art instillations which would “make a statement and make a difference” has seen him leave the day to day work as an art teacher aside for the moment so that he can concentrate on this art form.

Joe says he was "very excited" when he heard the Roscommon local authority put out a tender for art installations that would rejuvenate derelict buildings in the town, so he applied immediately and was lucky enough to get the job.

The brief for the project, which began almost a year ago and is still on-going, stipulated that it should “reflect the county of Roscommon and its people” so Joe Caslin set about researching the rich and colourful history of his native county.

“I decided to focus on the Roscommon crest which includes the motifs of an acorn, a crown and a ram’s head, and to base my artwork on these three themes.”

His first art installation focused on the acorn branch from the Roscommon crest, which he merged with a male figure. The resultant work now takes pride of place on one of the walls of Roscommon Castle.

While he says it is “hard to explain in words” what the evocative mural means, Joe Caslin says he decided to focus on the figure of a male emerging from an acorn “to show how we are all connected to nature and we are part of the land that we come from, in this case, the soil of Roscommon.”

During the course of his research, Joe also discovered a sheep farmer in Roscommon who has “a very rare breed of Roscommon sheep” so he based his second art installation around the theme of the ram’s head from his county crest. “Roscommon has a long history of association with sheep farming, so I wanted to reflect this in my work,” he says.

The ram’s head artwork has been installed on the side of the ETL Giftware Shop on The Square right in the heart of Roscommon town – with the help of Joe’s father, Leo. The building was formerly the location of the Bank of Ireland and is one of the most iconic structures in the town.

Public realm works are currently being carried out in the centre of Roscommon town which will see The Square being transformed into a pedestrian space, and the new art installation on the ETL Gift Shop will form an integral part of this process.

The third installation, which Joe Caslin is currently working on, will feature on the crown of Queen Maeve featured on the Roscommon crest.

Currently living “between Dublin and Belfast” the next big project on Joe Caslin’s busy list is in the German city of Cologne, where he will be working with 24 members of a small community in the east of the city on the creation of an installation which will capture “the meaning of Irish culture from a German perspective,” he says.

While acknowledging that Covid has impacted very negatively on the overall arts sector, Joe Caslin feels the “one positive to emerge from it has been “a renewed appreciation for the arts, and for artistic endeavour” and he is hopeful that this can continue into the future.

“I think everyone took a step back over the last two years of Covid and really tried to focus on the important things in life, and for many people, they found solace and comfort in art and creativity,” he says.