The world’s largest public art exhibition of life-sized cows has been herded into Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB) has moooved in on the act with its very own ni2012 cows.
The art exhibition will see up to 200 fibre glass cows transformed into magnificent sculptures by local artists and community groups and NITB’s herd of cows have been designed using the ni2012: our time, our place colours of pink, blue and yellow. The ni2012 cows are visiting towns and cities around Northern Ireland during the summer for one week at a time and after appearances in Portrush, Derry~Londonderry, Bangor, Warrenpoint and Omagh the cows are grazing in Armagh w/c July 30th on the Mall. The cows will then moove onto Belfast, Enniskillen and Downpatrick and NITB is encouraging people across the country to be the first to greet the cows.
The ni2012 herd could move to any location at any time in search of greener grass so look out for them wherever you are. To follow the cows as they travel around Northern Ireland visit www.ni2012.com. Pictured is one of the herd at the Killnasaggart Pillar Stone in County Armagh. The pillar is thought by some to go back to pagan times and that originally a small stone bearing two semicircular indentations lay in a cavity on top of the pillar stone.
The story goes that there was once a famous cow in the glen that gave milk in abundance to everyone who came. One day a person attempted, when milking the cow, to procure the milk through a sieve. The cow was so angry that she stamped her foot into this small stone and fled the glen never to return!