Unfortunately destroyed already, smashed to pieces and not by the wind :( pic.twitter.com/VdChQxYHvj
— Noel Donnellon (@NoelDonnellon) August 15, 2017
The Wind Phone.
By anonymous art collective Altrúchas.
Near Stepaside, County Dublin.
The Wind Phone is a private space to meditate on life and loss. It is a place where you can speak privately and openly and your words will be carried on the wind to wherever you want them to go.
Any excuse
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Have to laugh at this. Expect nothing less in Ireland. Irish society is rotten.
That is awful, beggar’s belief.
I was an unruly yoof in my day, but I’d still know to smash something as beautiful as that.
More of a 6 yokes and 8 cans guy
Can it be replaced?
…the phone probably can be replaced…not sure about your liver…
15 years later…. my liver is just fine thanks…. :)
6 yokes?
Was it hugged to death?
Why would they do such a thing? I can’t understand that mentality.
Even if you don’t appreciate it for yourself, can you not appreciate that it might mean something important to another.
This is why we can’t have nice things etc.
Mildrid. If you can’t understand the mentality of those dregs who demolished the phone box, then you’ve lead a sheltered life I’m afraid. When I saw the piece about the phone box on TV last week, I thought it would survive about a month – I was way out.
Looking at the pile it was left in I suspect it was done by someone who favoured the mountain in it’s more natural state.
..so they left a rubbish pile on top of it.
hmmmm.. I dunno
That is sad and horrible.
Doesn’t surprise me in the least. Ireland, home of the waster.
Bet it was a farmer ” not on my lannd” – reloads shotgun.
A bit of a long trek for an act of petty vandalism, though, surely, and hillwalkers don’t really seem like the sort, as a general rule.
I thought the same, doesn’t seem like the kind of spot unruly teens would be hanging about in.
Looks like it was the most vile sort of vandasl of all: art critics.
It’s an awful load of old trouser though. If you can’t find enough beauty in that landscape for contemplation you’re not going to find it inside a box. It’s really doing nothing except spoil the view and, given the relatively neat pile of firewood that’s left, I suspect the “vandal” in question was a lot older than you’d imagine.
True for ya. ‘mindful vandalism ‘ if you will..
I would tend to agree, wear nice
Bet they tried to ‘tap’ the numbers, but with digital, it didn’t work. So got mightily peeed off.
We’re such a bunch of philistines in this country
Have you heard the expression “leave only footprints”? The landscape is a space for contemplation with putting a phone box up. Maybe council workers have broken it up and will be back to remove the litter.
I know it well and it’s an important principle but I don’t think this action was in keeping with that principle.
Christ, life is hard in cargo bike, Educate Together, Electric Picnic South County Dublin innit?
Disused Telefón boxes belong in one place only: Irish pubs in the U.S. and Czech Republic. Not the wilderness. Ironically I’d say there was dhrink involved. The morning after somebody will be talking to their god alright – on the big porcelain telephone.
Fecks sake, this is precisely why we don’t have nice things.
I remember being in Australia and seeing they had free electric bbqs in almost all their Parks. You just pushed a button and cooked your food. No one ever messed with them. And I remember feeling sad thinking they wouldn’t last a wet week in Ireland without a traffic cone or something melting on it.
And now we don’t have public toilets.
If its one thing I’ve come to realise of late, it’s that as a society we need rules and the credible threat of enforcement or we seen to feck this place up. That’s the case whether it’s banking, charities, or public order.
:-(
Good points Harry.
We just need to eradicate the scum. Starting with people who take their news and views from the Indo.
Electric or gas Harry? Because I remember them too, and they were gas
I guess gas so. lurk remember the button and the food!
Why are (some) Irish people so anti-Irish? Vandalism happens everywhere. Maybe these vandals didn’t like the answer they got when they spoke privately and openly to the wind?
Meanwhile, yeah… maybe just put an old phone on a rock and wire it in, rather than erecting a whole phone box?
I’ve a question
If they’re Anonymous
This Art Crowd that put it there in the first place
Why are they called Altrúchas?
BTW
The Vandalism started by erecting the thing there in the first place
Irish Times letters (irrelevant as usual) today:
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/a-wind-phone-in-the-mountains-1.3187663
A wind phone in the mountains
Sir, – In 2010, Itaru Sasaki built in the garden of his Japanese home a phone booth with a difference. He called it a wind phone, and he used it to help him come to terms with the death of his cousin. His words, rather than being carried by phone lines, would be carried by the wind to his cousin. A very Shinto concept. The following year the terrible tsunami hit Itaru’s coastal hometown of Otsuchi killing over one in 10 of the population. In the aftermath, Mr Sasaki opened his garden wind phone to the public, and it soon became a place of pilgrimage for people trying to cope with terrible loss. A noble act by Mr Sasaki to help his grieving neighbours.
A few days ago an anonymous group of Irish people called Altrúchas set out to imitate the Japanese wind phone and in what must have looked like a scene from a Father Ted show carried a generator, fuel, drills, planks, paint, tools, and everything else needed to build a mock-up of a phone box up the heretofore unspoiled heather coated slops of Two Rock mountain.
Permission was not sought. Opinions were not canvassed. Environmental effect was ether not considered or else discounted.
The people who erected this eyesore were, I am sure, well meaning but anyone who comes to the beautiful area needs neither permission or the Craggy Island phone box to feel the spiritual power of the landscape and to contemplate, pray or just remember those no longer with us.
The structure should in my opinion be removed and replaced with nothing. Some places are best left alone. –
Yours, etc,
EAMONN MURDOCK,
Churchtown, Dublin 14.
Sir, – Danny Healy-Rae has claimed that fairies are responsible for subsidence in a road in Kerry (News, August 7th). Those who were inclined to be sceptical might note that the sudden appearance of a public telephone box in the Dublin hills near Fairy Castle suggests that Doctor Who is also taking the problem very seriously. – Yours, etc,
COLIN WALSH,
Templeogue, Dublin 6W.
SORTED
Jesus, bad times when I find myself agreeing with some (probable) grumpy oul lad from the Times letter section.
Now this art group need to collect the pile of poo and leave the place as they found it- wild and unspoiled
I’d bet they’re in receipt of the CNUAS too.
#windupphonedublin
If they’re irrelevant why did you post them ?
Go meditate in the smallest room in the house.
The second photograph looks like a PRE-installation one. Is the thing still there? These vandalism claims look like a windup…
I think the landscape is far more beautiful without that crap! Absolute litter, as far as I was concerned!
This guy is the main noise box – the mouthpiece for the effort. RTE again.
https://twitter.com/philipbromwell
Perhaps his friends can meditate on their loss in an old Eircom phonebox in Donnybrook.
The smell off wee in any phonebox would certainly make you ruminate on life
Nice idea but was there any public consultation at its planning stage? We have a development plan for a reason, largely to stop people building rogue structures on their property or elsewhere which may intrude on protected vistas and/or ecosystems. Is there an approval on file from SDCC? I’ve searched via their map but found nothing. The dismantling therefore could have been done by a local residents or environmental group, as its all neatly piled up for removal. They’ve probably done Altrúchas a favour by not reporting them.
Nonsense. It’s a temporary structure and art installation as such is exempt.
Right so. We’ll all have a crack at erecting structures about the place in the name of art.
If it’s a temporary structure, then at least they’ve saved on some dismantling time.
The same argument was used when the lads put up that poster during the Gay referendum i.e. it should be subject to planning blah blah blah
But political speech and artistic expression are protected in this country. It’s very clear that this was no attempt to litter or create an eyesore for the sake of it. Sorry for you that you’re so small-minded
It was an arrogant, self indulgent eyesore in the first place. Less of one now.
This is why we only need nice things.
This eyesore wasn’t one of them. Good riddance.
im suspicious of the whole story, how RTE happened to interview the first person to see the phonebox; how did that occur? art is good when its original, this idea was copied from elsewhere, it did indeed look like something out of father ted (which was great but unintended), the demolishing of the thing adds to the publicity and maybe it’s a stunt.. the building of this without permission in this landscape is arguably vandalism similar to the smashing it down. an interesting short story nonetheless! the moral of the story is: dont try!
It’s a hoax.
More likely it was a SJW who equated the celebration of a vintage phone box with a symbolic return to more traditional, patriarchal Ireland. It just had to go. And if not for high summer and acknowledgement of gorse victimhood, it would have been burned to the ground.
Weird how the comments here swung all the way from SCUM to objectively pro-vandalism.