Michael Warren (sculptor)


Michael Warren was an Irish sculptor who produced site-specific public art.
Warren was born in 1950 in Gorey, County Wexford, Ireland.
Inspired by Oisín Kelly, his art teacher at St Columba's College, Michael Warren studied at Bath Academy of Art, at Trinity College Dublin and, from 1971 to 1975, at the Accademia di Brera in Milan. He last lived and worked in Co. Wexford.
He had a number of very visible works in Ireland, including the large sweeping wood sculpture in front of the Dublin Civic Offices. Wood Quay, where the civic offices stand, was the centre of Viking Dublin and the sculpture evokes the form, and the powerful grace, of a Viking ship. It also reflects vertically the horizontal sweep of the nearby Liffey as it enters its bay. A complex balance of meanings matching a delicate, though massive, balance of substance is typical of his work. Warren himself described the useful ambiguity of abstraction.
With Roland Tallon he created Tulach a' tSolais, a memorial to the 1798 rebellion at Oulart Hill, County Wexford. Here, a room was hollowed out of a small hill; the room contains two abstract curved oak forms and is illuminated by natural light falling through a long slot in its ceiling and walls. Despite the unusual and abstract constitution of this memorial and despite the fraught political resonance of the rebellion, Tulach a' tSolais is popular and something of a local attraction. His Gateway in Dún Laoghaire was less popular with some local people and it was eventually removed and returned to the artist.
At the northern entrance to the village of Leighlinbridge, County Carlow, is a sculpture by Michael Warren, depicting the thrones of the ancient seat of the Kings of South Leinster at Dinn Righ. The Kings of Leinster lived near the village.
He died on 10 July 2025.

Work on display

Cloch na gCoillte Clonakilty, County Cork, IrelandUnbroken Line Dublin Castle, Dublin, IrelandAntaeus II Scott Cottage, Rossdohan, County Kerry, IrelandJanus Western Gate Building, University College Cork, Cork, IrelandM-7 23, homage to Eileen Gray II Department of Environment, Wexford, IrelandStele for Thomas Wyse Waterford Institute of Technology, Waterford, IrelandObelisk Battle of the Boyne Visitor Centre, Oldbridge Estate, County Meath, IrelandLieu de Rencontre Dar Sabre, Marrakech, MoroccoM-7 23 Expo 2008, Zaragoza, SpainWave Form No1 Warrington Place, Dublin, IrelandReliquery St Dominic's College, Cabra, Dublin, IrelandGo deo, homage to Samuel Beckett, Trinity College Dublin, IrelandEm Louvor dos Limites Carrazeda de Ansiães, PortugalNo Pasaran the Mall, Waterford, IrelandAmor Fati Jiaobanshan Park, Taoyuan, TaiwanBronze Arch Gongju, KoreaHer Hair Courtown Harbour, County Wexford, Ireland