Derry boasts two very different sculptures by the distinguished artist F E McWilliam - the austere Princess Macha in Altnagelvin Hospital’s foyer and the dynamic Judo Players at Foyle Arena.

Princess Macha was commissioned for the new Altnagelvin Hospital, officially opened 66 years ago this month. McWilliam linked this to Macha’s reputedly founding of Ireland’s first hospital in 300BC at Eamhain Mhacha (Navan Fort, Co Armagh). The dove she holds symbolises St. Colmcille who is understood to have built Derry's first infirmary at his 6th century monastery here.

The Judo Players sculpture, on the other hand, is full of active life - two figures grappling and entangled on the ground, frozen in a martial arts throw. They tumble at the entrance to Foyle Arena in St. Columb's Park.

Judo was a fitting tribute to Foyle Arena which housed Ireland's first dedicated Centre of Excellence for Judo; and has hosted large-scale Judo events.

The Judo Players at Foyle Arena and Princess Macha at Altnagelvin Hospital.

placeholder image — The Judo Players at Foyle Arena and Princess Macha at Altnagelvin Hospital.

McWilliam is one of NI’s most widely known sculptors and artists, remembered in the FE McWilliam Gallery & Studio, in his native Banbridge, for his wide variety of modernist and surrealist works.

For many people McWilliam’s most gripping creation was Woman in a Bomb Blast - one of his 20 'Women of Belfast' sculptures - his response to the notorious March 1972 bomb left in Belfast’s Abercorn Tea Room café, killing two young women and injuring 130 other civilians, some horrendously. All paramilitary organisations denied responsibility for the bomb. McWilliam described the sculpture as “the women as victims of man’s stupidity”.