Collection: Night's Candles Are Burnt Out Merchandise

All merchandise is inspired by the Night's Candles Are Burnt Out exhibition that is currently running in The Hunt Museum 22 September 2023 - 29th February 2024

Ireland has a strong history of effecting change for the better. In 1929 the Shannon Hydroelectric Scheme went into operation, just five years after it was proposed to the government of the Irish Free State. It supplied electricity to the whole of Ireland and changed lives in the West using one of our most ubiquitous resources: water. The artist Sean Keating painted its development, showing politics, lives, technology and a way to the future.

Today our challenge is even larger: how to cope with global warming and the existential threat it poses. 

The Shannon Estuary can play a leading role in the switch to renewable energy. Supply of Atlantic Offshore Wind Energy should be on stream through the Estuary by 2030. But this needs a community recognising the intrinsic value of change and able to support the interim disruption and need for building of roads, housing, schools and services which will feel counter intuitive, much like the creation of Ardnacrusha and the Shannon Hydro-Electric Scheme did in the 1920’s.