Owner: Lough MacNean Sculpture Trail

Location: Claddagh Glen – along the river beside the weir.

Title: Salmon Leap 1999

Artist: Betty Newman-Maguire

Material: Wood – Douglas Fir

Size: 4.5ft (W) x 12ft (H)

Funded by: Co-Operation Ireland; County Councils; Lottery funded through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Arts Council of Ireland

Background: As part of a two month residency working with local children. Inspired by the weir on the Claddagh River where the salmon leap. Looking through the negative fish shapes on the sculpture one can see the weir. The undulating side of the piece echoes the flow of the water.

Artists Details: Betty Newman-Maguire was born in Kells, Co. Meath in 1952. She graduated with a first class honours degree in Sculpture from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, 1988 and was awarded a Master of Fine Art from the University of Ulster, Belfast in 1998. She has mounted 12 solo exhibitions in Ireland and America and has also exhibited in group shows internationally. Since graduating in 1988 she has been awarded many major public commissions.

Her public sculptures range in material from steel, wood, stone, bronze and earth. The scale of her public work includes a 35 foot long Viking Ship, a 4 foot steel Cormorant sited on a tall tree stump and an environmental land art installation using 101 felled trees. All her public sculptures are site specific and are made in response to the environment.