72 snowflake-shaped illuminated pads installed on Harvey's Quay for the 2025 Limerick City Christmas programme — when stepped on, each pad lights up and plays bell-like chimes, turning a busy public quayside into a free, outdoor musical instrument for families and passers-by throughout December.
The Concept
Harvey's Quay is one of Limerick City's main pedestrian arteries — a wide riverside walkway that carries thousands of people daily through the Christmas season. Making Spirits Bright transformed this everyday route into a participatory installation: 72 large snowflake pads laid across the quay surface, each one a glowing invitation to play.
The title comes from the Frank Loesser lyric — but the piece is less about sentimentality than about surprise. The installation interrupts a familiar journey. Step on a snowflake and the city responds: a warm light blooms underfoot, a clear bell tone rings out. Walk across the full field and you compose something, without knowing you were going to.
Technical System
Each of the 72 pads contains a custom pressure-detection module: a force-sensitive element triggers a microcontroller that simultaneously fires an LED array and sends a MIDI note command to the central audio system. The result is near-zero latency — the light and sound response feels immediate and physical, not digital.
System Design
- 72 individual pad units, each with independent pressure sensing and LED control
- Waterproof enclosure rated for outdoor installation and foot traffic
- Central audio system with spatial speaker distribution across the quay
- Bell sample library tuned to a pentatonic scale — playable by anyone, musically coherent regardless of sequence
- Wireless data collection for uptime monitoring and fault detection
- Power distribution system compliant with public space installation standards
The Pentatonic Choice
The decision to tune the pads to a pentatonic scale was central to making the installation genuinely participatory. A pentatonic set has no dissonant intervals — any combination of notes sounds harmonious. That means a three-year-old stomping randomly across the pads produces something as pleasing as a deliberate adult sequence. The piece doesn't reward expertise or punish randomness. It just plays.
Public Reception
The installation ran throughout December 2025 on Harvey's Quay. Coverage on Limerick's Live 95 radio and local press noted the unusually high dwell time — groups repeatedly returning to play, children dragging adults back for another pass. The piece was designed for that: not a static object to observe but a mechanism to return to, with a different outcome every time.
Collaboration
Making Spirits Bright was co-led across the studio. Catherine Ireton shaped the concept, the spatial experience, and the musical vocabulary of the piece — including the sample selection and the tonal palette. Luis Berna designed and built the full electronic system: custom LED modules, the pressure-to-MIDI pipeline, weatherproofing, and on-site integration.
The commission was awarded by Limerick City & County Council as part of the 2025 Christmas public arts programme.
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