Admiral Brown statue unveiled

CASTING A SHADOW The newly-unveiled bronze statue of Admiral William Brown towers over Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, Minister Noel Dempsey, who performed the unveiling, and JJ O’Hara, President of the Foxford Admiral Brown Society. Pic: David Turner

Curtain falls on memorable year of Admiral Brown celebrations

Michael Duffy

A LARGE crowd congregated in Foxford last Saturday afternoon for the unveiling of a life-sized Admiral William Brown bronze statue, bringing the curtain down on a year of celebration of the life of the founder of the Argentinean Navy.
Minister Noel Dempsey was granted the honour of unveiling the statue at the Admiral Brown Centre, where he said it was obvious that the town of Foxford was very proud of the achievements of one of their own.
“I know there has been a whole list of activities throughout the year celebrating the 150th anniversary of the death of Admiral Brown and it is heartening to see such a big turn-out here today for the unveiling of this magnificent statue,” said Minister Dempsey, who also had encouraging news for the Foxford Admiral Brown Society, who are hoping to open an Admiral Brown Park in the town.
“I definitely think that funding could be available through the Department of Tourism for such a project and I see no reason why an application for funding would not be looked on favourably,” said Minister Dempsey.
Mr JJ O’Hara, President of the Foxford Admiral Brown Society, said he was encouraged by the views of Minister Dempsey but he said he now wanted to organise a meeting with Minister for Tourism, Seamus Brennan, to fully exploit the huge potential of the link that has been created between Brown’s home town of Foxford, and his place of death, Buenos Aires.
“We have to strike while the iron is still hot so I would like to meet with Minister Brennan to see if he will encourage Fáilte Ireland to really take this opportunity seriously and really promote Foxford in Argentina. There is a niche market there that they should be really exploiting to the full, but after five years of correspondence with Fáilte Ireland, we have not made any real progress.
“Argentineans mostly take their holidays in January, February or March and any visitors at that time of year would be a huge bonus to Foxford and the surrounding areas.”
Mr O’Hara added that the year of celebration had definitely raised awareness of the great exploits of Admiral Brown but he was determined to keep the Admiral’s name in the public domain.
“We also launched a school kit on Saturday which is to be sent to the 324 schools right across County Mayo. The kit contains a DVD, a book and mementoes of the year of celebration and hopefully this will heighten awareness of one of Mayo’s greatest sons among students all over the county.”
Plans are also well advanced to carry out extensive restoration work to Admiral Brown’s grave in Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires.
“We are planning to place Connemara Marble all around the grave and we have also made a request of all the schools in Mayo to send us some soil, so we can then transport it and distribute it on Admiral Brown’s grave. We can then truly say he is buried in the soil of his birthplace.”
Representatives of the Argentine and Irish Navy were in attendance at the unveiling on Saturday, along with representatives of the Argentinean Embassy.