The Enniskillen fisherman mural – which stands three stories tall with a majestic brown trout as the focal point – has been the talk of the town ever since it was painted on the rear wall of The Crowes Nest by talented local artist, Kevin McHugh, supported by Enniskillen BID.

Enniskillen has totally embraced the vision of Enniskillen BID to energise the town’s walls with street art.

Within the space of 12 months, Enniskillen BID has worked with four talented artists on five mural commissions.

As the biggest mural, to date, the new fisherman mural by the Eden Street corner with Paget Square joins the magpie mural, also designed and painted by Kevin, and the colourful pike mural at Joe the Baker’s stall at Paget Lane, The Happy Prince at Water Street, and Adrian Dunbar as ‘Ted Hastings’ on the wall of Charlie’s Bar.

Speaking to The Impartial Reporter this week following the completion of the most recent striking mural, Kevin shared his delight at the positive response from locals, describing it as “nice validation” of his work.

‘A great response’

“It’s lovely to get a great response,” said Kevin, adding with a laugh: “I’m just so glad it seems to be going down well and it’s a nice wee validation that ‘Yes, I did that right’, because you’d hear about it if you didn’t!”

Talking about the inspiration behind the mural design, Kevin explained that Feargal Shannon, Manager of The Crowes Nest, provided him with the fisherman theme, and he took great advice from other fishing enthusiasts for an accurate portrayal of the scene.

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“I know nothing about fishing,” laughed Kevin. “I tried to do a wee bit of research. I got some of the details right, some of them wrong, but the funny thing is, when I went round to hire the cherry picker at HP Hire, Mark – the Sales Manager there – he is a really keen fly fisher.

“He looked at the drawing and said, ‘This is right, this is right, this is wrong’, and in about half an hour we had the whole thing sorted out, and all the details right; the reel, the right type of line, the right type of fly tie,” explained Kevin, noting that Mark even sent him home with a fly tie to use as inspiration for his design.

“So at least I knew all the details were going to be right, and there weren’t going to be a pile of fishermen looking at the wall, picking holes [in my design],” he added.

After finalising the design, Kevin set to work painting. “My friend Bob helped me with the undercoat and the blocking in of colours on the first day,” said Kevin, noting that the mural took a total of seven days to complete.

Coincidentally, the painting of the fisherman mural coincided with the Fermanagh Classic Fishing Festival.

“It was a pure coincidence that it was the same week as the Fermanagh Classic, it couldn’t have been timed better.

“I would have done it weeks ago if I had have been ready to do it. I had so much other paintings on, I just couldn’t get to it and I missed that real good week of scorching weather, but as it turned out it, was the perfect week to do it,” said Kevin.

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Noelle McAloon, Manager of Enniskillen BID, applauded Kevin on a fantastic result, especially as he fought against the rain and wind at the start of the week – noting that he had to redo a number of elements as the rain just washed some work away.

She said: “The murals have been an instant hit with the local business community, who fund this project, and the general public who are already asking for more as it brightens up our town centre.

“The concept behind the project was to have another reason for people to come into town and explore, and it really has achieved this, in such a short period of time.”

Enniskillen BID have confirmed that they have had more walls put forward by businesses in town, and are looking for other themes to help develop some more amazing street art.