A lost coastal sound will return to echo through Cork city centre for one day this January.

Found Sound (Lost at Sea) 11.1.11 is an installation by sound artist Danny McCarthy which, on Thursday 11 January 2024, will resonate across Emmet Place outside Crawford Art Gallery and infiltrate the surrounding soundscapes of Cork.

The performance of this unique sound work commemorates the thirteenth anniversary of the last foghorn sounding from lighthouses along the Irish coast when they ceased on 11 January 2011.

Found Sound (Lost at Sea) 11.1.11 was created as a result of McCarthy’s interest in acoustic ecology.

The sound installation will be audible intermittently throughout the day and serves as a reminder of what was once an imperative soundtrack to daily life.

McCarthy’s work, which joined the National Collection in 2020, is unique to Crawford Art Gallery’s context. The Gallery was originally built in 1724 as Cork’s Custom House and the sound work recalls its ties to the city’s commercial success, since the eighteenth century, as a significant port for commerce, migration, and defence. Cork Harbour also lays claim to being one of the largest natural navigable harbours in the world and, as the city’s motto of ‘Statio Bene Fida Carinis’ announces, still offers a safe home to seafaring travellers, tourists, and inter-continental shipping.

Crawford Art Gallery is delighted to mark the anniversary of this important work and invites visitors to stroll by the gallery on Thursday 11 January for this echo of a once ubiquitous but now lost coastal sound.

Danny McCarthy (b.1950) is one of Ireland’s pioneers of performance art and sound art for over forty years and he continues to be a leading exponent exhibiting and performing both in Ireland and abroad. In 2006, he founded The Quiet Club with Mick O’Shea, a floating membership sound (art and electronics) performance group. He has exhibited nationally and internationally, and is a founding director of Triskel Arts Centre and National Sculpture Factory.