Epiphany of the Mulroy Bay II - We did it!

Photo by Marc Holden

Yes, indeed we did!

We had a great team. There were two boats carrying a total of 14 volunteers - 3 were documenting the spectacle using still and video cameras and 11 were torchbearers. Ashore, we had another still and video camera team with a driver to take them to pre-identified locations and we had 3 torchbearers ashore to light up key landmarks.

Myself, Chantelle Stewart & John Harrison had worked hard all day visiting the locations by land and by sea. The sping tides meant a very low - low water, so it took three attempts before we could do a walk through of all the locations. In the meantime we were back at the house putting together a plan, documenting it and getting ready for the team to assemble.

We had a team briefing at 4:30 pm , where I explained the concept for Epiphany , Chantelle then gave a brief introduction to sustainable public lighting and the actions of guerrilla lighting in Dublin, a detailed plan of the lighting design, which was presented very much like a play with different scenes, was given to everybody with the press release and then I went through all the safety considerations. People were assigned boats, everyone was given a buddy to work with and everyone was checked for lifejacket and personal torch.

We were at the pier at 5:15 and headed down to Church Strand in twilight. This is where it became magical. As darkness descended, we entered a different environment where you become sensitised to the sound and smell of the sea.

We took up our positions and were ready to go at 6pm. The cameras were having difficulty focussing, as the boats were only lit with domestic torches, we were reserving our main beams as much as we could because the battery lasts only 20 minutes.

Then Chantelle blew the first horn signaling to all of us to commence the first scene and turn on our torches, minutes later we got the signal to turn off the power and get ready for the next shot. And that is how we went from scene to scene , we had some small difficulty in communicating with the shore, but this was quickly remedied.

It all flowed in a very slow and measured manner. There was an undercurrent of nervousness that gave way to excitement that became more palpable as the shoot progressed. ... and then were done, we finished about 7:30pm and headed back to Baltimore pier.

Not all the torch batteries had been exhausted, so on the way back we lit each other up and became stars in our own private spectacle.

What a night - making soul memories. Thanks to everyone.