Thomas Glendon is the Designer of the Knocknagow Award
Presentation Booklet for the Annerville Awards at Clonmel on January 25, 2025
Thomas Glendon has been designing the Knocknagow Award for 45 years. He recalls being contacted by Maurice Durney from Showerings, Clonmel in 1979. The contact stemmed from a recommendation by Apple Advertising, who were looking for an artist to explore and produce ideas for a series of sports awards.
Johnny O'Loughlin is the longest-serving member of the United Sports Panel. He joined the panel in 1976 and recalls that there was no specifically-designed Knocknagow Award before 1979. The panel usually contacted a provider to supply trophies for the recipients, with a bigger one provided for the Knocknagow Award. There was a lack of consistency in the design and quality
Johnny O'Loughlin is the longest-serving member of the United Sports Panel. He joined the panel in 1976 and recalls that there was no specifically-designed Knocknagow Award before 1979. The panel usually contacted a provider to supply trophies for the recipients, with a bigger one provided for the Knocknagow Award. There was a lack of consistency in the design and quality of the trophies.
Thomas Glendon's brief was to design a major award, Knocknagow, for a Tipperary sports star of the past; and a secondary award, named the Cidona Awards, for established and emerging athletes. There was no restriction on the field of sport and over the years a broad range of activities, including Gaelic football, hurling, soccer, rugby, boxing, athletics and showjumping were to receive recognition.
Considering the brand and products produced by Showerings, a motif based on an apple appeared the most appropriate design for the Knocknagow award. At an early meeting at the design stage an apple in marble was suggested, but when a request emerged for it to be sprayed silver, the idea was dropped. Thomas Glendon explains his intention: “In my modelling of the award I felt an apple in the round would be too much in volume. This led to the process of paring and decoring to arrive at a satisfactory shape. To an untrained artistic eye it had to immediately convey its source of firm, distinctly apple and not easily mistaken for another fruit. The success was in the outline, it conveyed an apple without all the weightiness.
“The award is made of bronze, cast in a sand mould, polished and patinaed. In the raw the metal is cased and filed to define the outline, then the edges are patinaed and the face given a high polish. Elevated on a bronze dowel, it is set on a polished base made of Kilkenny limestone”.
The original Cidona Awards, now ceased, were medallions of sterling silver, echoing the Knockagow in outline.
Thomas Glendon hails from a line of long established monumental masons in the Dun Laoghaire district, who originally came from the Inistioge area of Kilkenny in the 1880s.
His introduction to craftsmanship in stone was in his father Laurence's workshop at Deansgrange, County Dublin. Under his guidance he learned the primary techniques in stonework, geometry, lettering and toolmaking. Sometime later he was introduced to the well-known letter-cutter and sculptor, Michael Biggs.
The 1916 Proclamation carved on Ardbraccan Limestone at Arbour Hill is his masterpiece in lettering. He also had a very successful and influential body of work in Sanctuary Furniture design; St. Michael's Church, Dun Laoghaire and St. McCartan's Cathedral in Monaghan are well-known examples of his approach to sacred elements.
Thomas was Michael Biggs' assistant for six years, from 1968-1974, when he received an excellent grounding in the fundamentals of letter design and model-making.
They parted on good terms and Thomas set up his own studio in Shannon, County Clare, learning the rudiments of the self-employed.
In fact, while in Shannon the request to design the Knocknagow award came about.
He has fond memories of travelling through the Glen of Aherlow to meetings in Clonmel.