Good News#1 is that Embassy of Ireland (GB), who hosted our project launch 2 years ago along with London's Irish Literary Society, and gave us £5,000 to start the project, have now added another £10,000 making their contribution £15,000 in total and taking us to £107,000 and almost 80% of target. Good News#2: the delayed planning approval for the artwork meant we were unable to progress several major pledges until this week. (No one's fault, Hounslow Borough have been v. helpful both planning-wise and funding-wise, but decision was expected mid-Feb before campaign started and actually came through last week, days before original pledge end-date and rather late for those organisations waiting for planning approval to consider pledging.) So Spacehive have now deferred pledge collection deadline until 20th July. Pledges are valid to that date and will only be collected when we reach our target. Many thanks for your support: apart from larger backers (Hounslow, Royal Academy, Irish Embassy and Josephine Hart Poetry Foundation), your 260 individual pledges amount to nearly £30,000 so far, for which we're incredibly grateful and which really demonstrates that we can close that gap in 10 weeks with enough lead-time to confirm/commission work to have the artwork in place for grand unveiling celebrations to coincide with WB Yeats's birthday in June 2022! (pic: Cahal Dallat, Anne-Marie Fyfe, Ciarán Hinds, Shevaun Wilder and Ambassador Adrian O'Neill at Embassy of Ireland, Grosvenor Place SW1.)
