A statue created for the people of Rathcoole has been returned to the estate after 20 years.
The Lady of Rathcoole statue was brought to the estate in 1964, after being created by the sculptor Stephen Toogood. It remained on site until 2003, when redevelopment work at The Diamond saw the statue being taken down and put into storage.
Over the years, many people had been asking where the statue went to and local youth development group NACN tracked the statue down, finding her in a warehouse in Antrim.
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NACN received funding from the Northern Ireland Housing Executive to refurbish the statue, and this weekend she has been returned to the same site she was last spotted in the estate.
The Lady of Rathcoole gazed down upon the estate for over 40 years, with Centre Manager of NACN, Dee Crooks, telling Belfast Live he's delighted to see a piece of local history being returned.
He said: "The statue was brought here in 1964 when Rathcoole became an area to house people from inner-city Belfast. It was gifted from a sculptor called Stephen Toogood as he wanted to give something to the community of the new estate.
"The copper statue hung literally 20 feet from where she's placed now, until they did major redevelopment in the estate. She was took down in 2003 and put into storage.
"Over the years, many people have been asking where she is and what happened to her. As part of a redevelopment project, we went to look for her, and it took a couple of years until we found her.
"We applied for funding from the Housing Executive and we got her renovated, and now she's on the wall ready for a big reveal on Sunday night.
"It was a lot of pointing in the wrong direction most of the time to find her, but then a new district manager for the Housing Executive here helped us out and said she knew where she was.
"They met us in Antrim and she was in an old warehouse there covered with pallets.
"She had a missing foot and was dented, she was in a bad way. But again the Housing Executive gave us a bit of funding to get her refurbished and have been very supportive of it."
Dee said the figure was known for terrifying young people in the area, and he hopes this legacy can now continue.
"A lot of the young people in the area have been asking their parents about the statue," he said.
"Everybody says she's ugly and scary, and she is, but she's part of the fabric of Rathcoole," he said.
"She doesn't belong to the Council or the Housing Executive, she belongs to the people of Rathcoole, and that's why we thought as a youth organisation it was very important to bring her back so the next generation can go through being scared and looking at the ugly woman on the wall.
"I remember her when I was young because she did scare me, she was ugly. That's part of my history growing up on this estate, it's the greatest estate Rathcoole, there's a lot of great people in it. It's good we're able to bring a positive story to the area."
On Sunday afternoon, the community will be holding a fun day with live music and bouncy castles before unveiling the statue at 8pm.
Dee said: "We didn't just want to put a statue on the wall and have that be it. We put a bit of work into our youth management programme, where they've been going through event management training, so this is their event."
Video by Belfast Live videographer Harry Bateman.
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