Four months after he lost his head, the Galway writer Padraic O Conaire is once more the sum of his parts. The limestone statue of the writer in the city's Eyre Square has been restored to its former glory by Galway Corporation, Lorna Siggins writes.
Mr Mick Wilkins, a Galway sculptor, carried out the surgery this week, which required the use of steel rods to merge the plaster. Galway Corporation said it was a "very expert job", given that the original artist, Mr Albert Power, had worked from one solid block of limestone.
Four youths with addresses in Armagh are due back in court on charges of causing criminal damage to the statue in early April.
The missing head was recovered by gardai several hours after the decapitation was reported, and was kept for some time in Garda custody as evidence.
Since the attack, the statue has become a tourist attraction, with visitors posing behind the figure for the camera.
O Conaire, who has been compared to Chekhov, was born in Galway in 1882 and was reared by his grandparents after the death of his parents. After his education in the Connemara Gaeltacht, Rockwell and Blackrock College, Dublin, he joined the civil service in London and began to write as Gaeilge.
Among his many works is M'Asal Beag Dubh, comprising essays on the delights of open air life. He spent his final years teaching Irish in Galway and died in 1928, leaving only a pipe, tobacco and an apple behind. The statue was unveiled by Eamon de Valera in 1935.
Eventually, Galway Corporation intends to commission a bronze replica of the statue, O Conaire work, which will be placed in the proposed new sculpture park in Eyre Square.
The original statue will be taken indoors and placed in a civic museum planned for Spanish Arch as part of the millennium programme.