Bronze statue of Tom Clarke by Albert Power, Sarsfield Memorial, Limerick, completed by his sons in 1948
Albert Power, bronze statue of Tom Clarke (1916 signatory), Sarsfield Memorial, Limerick. Begun 1938, completed by his sons after his death, 1948. Photograph: Power family archive.
Last updated
Date
1938–1947 (completed 1948 by his sons)
Medium
Bronze
Location
Sarsfield Memorial, Limerick
Collection
works

This bronze figure of Tom Clarke (1858–1916), the senior signatory of the 1916 Proclamation and the first to sign it, forms part of the Sarsfield Memorial in Limerick. Power began work on the statue in 1938, but it remained unfinished at the time of his death in July 1945.

According to a museum exhibition placard documented in the family archive, the statue was completed by Power’s sons after his death, with the work finished in 1948 — three years after Albert Sr. died. This represents one of the most direct and significant continuations of Power’s unfinished work by the next generation, alongside the brothers’ shared work at Christ the King Church, Carndonagh, and Albert Jr.’s solo restoration of the Custom House.

Clarke is shown gesturing outward, a cigarette case in one raised hand and a pike in the other — a pose evoking both his role as orator-revolutionary and the broader iconography of pike-bearing rebellion found across Power’s public monuments, including the Tralee Pikeman (1939).

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