The artwork, painted by local artist Adam J Connors, while a fitting homage to two of Bray\u2019s sporting legends, is also a real testament to the collective community spirit that prevails in the neighbourhood. With the slogan placed between the two boxers, \u2018When Dreams Become Reality\u2019, it will have a lasting impact, fitting once again, given it wasn\u2019t the easiest of battles for this particular dream to become a reality either. <\/p>\n
There were a lot of driving forces behind it, from the inspiration of Paul Treacy, manager of the community centre, to the dogged perseverance of local councillor Dermot O\u2019Brien, as well as Ashling Smith (Pilates with Ash), who spearheaded the fundraising drive.<\/p>\n
Even the crew at Chadwicks in Bray deserves a mention for sponsoring the use of the scissor lift which helped hoist Adam to great heights to complete the work. Of course, none of it would have been possible without the wishes of the two subjects, who gave it a wholesome blessing and a seal of approval.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s complete,\u201d Daina posted on the Facebook page. \u201cAbsolutely delighted what an honour to be beside the legend herself, big thank you to Connect Ballywaltrim South Bray.\u201d <\/p>\n
The genesis for the idea of the mural goes back to last year, when the community held a homecoming event for Daina after the Paris Olympics. <\/p>\n
Ashling expressed an interest in her business community sponsoring the project, and, as Paul explained, \u201cwe roped Adam in and we got on to Councillor Daisy and stakeholders and it’s taken almost a year to get over the line\u201d.<\/p>\n
“But we finally got there,\u201d he said. \u201cSo the idea is that two Olympians came from the same community, and it was just a way of kind of putting it out there and celebrating their achievements, because they do inspire young people in the area. And it’s a nice way to celebrate that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once permission was granted by the council in June, it was decided that a competition should be opened to involve the young people in the community in devising a suitable slogan. The winner, a member of the youth project, was Darcy Crinnion, who came up with the befitting words: \u2018When Dreams Become Reality\u2019.<\/p>\n
Paul said everyone has been \u201cthrilled\u201d with the result.<\/p>\n
It was a \u201cno-brainer\u201d for Ashling, when she offered to take over the fundraising side of the project. <\/p>\n
“I started out my business in Ballywatrim Community Centre,\u201d she said. \u201cThey’ve always been really great to me. So I approached Paul and said I’d be interested. And I went back to my Pilates community and told them what was happening and would they be in. And it was a resounding \u2018yes\u2019 from everybody,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
“They wanted to support it. So over the long winter, through planning applications etc, we waited and waited and waited. And when we got the go-ahead, the money just came pouring in for us. But at no stage was it a given. Similar projects in other areas, I believe, have been refused. But Daisy O’Brien was a real driving force behind getting this through. So it was an absolute privilege to be able to support this for our two Olympic athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was also a privilege for the man on the scissor lift, Adam J Connors, who said: \u201cSuch an honour to paint a mural of these two Bray legends in their own neighbourhood. Got to spend a couple of weeks in the area, met the nicest people and one thing is for sure, every single person there has so much love for them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The artwork, painted by local artist Adam J Connors, while a fitting homage to two of Bray\u2019s sporting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,8808,82,15501],"class_list":{"0":"post-17968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-katie-taylor","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tom-galvin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}