By Kieran Devaney
The Metal Man has guarded our island shores down the generations. When he was young, Sligo Bay was a sea of sails as ships and salty seafarers passed his outstretched hand, tied up in Memory Harbour, drank pints of porter in the Elsinore and toasted girls across the ocean. He watched the famine ships sail and he never ate, saw men sail off to wars and never fought and heard more than one hundred and fifty years of village gossip and never listened.
Jack Yeats painted him, and so too did Austie Gillen with his bucket and brush and many a cottage in Rosses Point was also resplendent in Royal Navy blue.
Until now the Metal Man has never talked about his brothers scattered around the world who have spent their lives on rocks and headlands, sandbars and sandbanks, beaches, broad walks and breakwaters, welcoming sailors home from the sea.
Now, the Metal Man needs your help to find his lost family. We know he has a brother in Tramore on the East Coast of Ireland, but our research goes no further. Legend has it in Rosses Point that there is a Metal Man in Australia and another in New Zealand. Annie Devaney suggested we should look in Ronnie Drew's garden in Dublin and Brendan Gill is adamant we will find one of our missing Men in Montevideo in Uruguay. Ronnie Drew insists he knows nothing, though he is prepared to exchange Nelson's head for a real Metal Man. An exhaustive search of Australia and New Zealand Lighthouse Websites has also drawn a blank and Uruguay is new to the net.
A German yachtsman told us there are Metal Men in Juist, in the Friesian Islands, Texel Point, on the Hook of Holland and Lizard Point in Cornwall. We are trying to confirm these reports.
But to find all his missing brothers in time for the Millennium the Metal Man needs your help. If you have a Metal Man off your coast, or in your back garden, e-mail us now.
If you are a friend of the Metal Man keep coming back to this page and we'll keep you updated on the progress of our search. Who knows? By the end of the century we may be able to host the Metal Men Millenium Reunion.
Pictures of the Rosses Point Metal Man
Report a Sighting of a Metal Man
Read the Latest News on the Metal Man's Search for his Missing Brothers
