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Peace Dove

Joe Sweeney & Paul Burton

An exceptional and historically resonant Irish bronze — one of an edition of just seven, cast at the historic CIE Foundry in Inchicore in 1998 and mounted on a base of ancient bog oak. The Dove was designed by Joe Sweeney and Paul Burton and commissioned by STOP 96 (Solidarity For Organised Peace), the citizens's organisation founded in response to the Manchester bombings. Across its outstretched wings the word Peace is incised in twenty-three languages — pax, paix, paz, salaam, síocháin, мир, 平和 — a small bronze made to carry the wish of a whole island at the dawn of the Good Friday Agreement. Provenance: Ex-Collection of the Rt Hon Mo Mowlam MP, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1997–1999) — the politician whose extraordinary candour, courage and humanity helped broker the Agreement that ended a generation of conflict. Sister pieces from the same edition were presented to US President Bill Clinton, Prime Minister Tony Blair and An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. To own this Dove is to hold a small bronze witness to one of the most important moments in modern Irish — and modern European — history.