Giant red squirrel sculpture in central Dublin

Portuguese artist creates monumental 3D red squirrel on Tara Street.

A new mixed-media mural featuring a giant red squirrel has been unveiled at the top of Tara Street in Dublin’s city centre.

The mural, by Portuguese environmental artist Artur Bordalo, is on the corner of Georges Quay, opposite the Customs House near the city's central bus station.

Bordalo's five-day project was captured by Irish filmmakers Trevor Whelan and Rua Meegan, who have been filming the artist for two years as part of a documentary, funded by the Irish Film Board, which will premiere this year.

The street artist and sculptor, known in the art world as Bordalo II, uses a combination of painting and sculpture to create 3D murals, often incorporating the city’s discarded items such as broken bicycles, car parts and tyres. His highly colourful bas-relief creatures can be found in 24 countries including Italy where he created a giant goat's head at the St Peter's train station in Rome.

The subject of the artist's Dublin mural - the red squirrel - is an indigenous Irish species under threat from deforestation and a virus carried by the grey squirrel, a larger species introduced into Ireland about a century ago, and which now outnumbers the red squirrel six to one.

Photo The Journal