Abbeyleix Bog Project manages 500 acres, that includes 100 acres of raised bog. Today the main path at Abbeyleix Bog Project traces the same route as the old railway line and the boardwalk twists its way across the bog with spectacular views all around. It includes scrub, bog and conifer woodland, cutover bog etc.
Along the walk you’ll spot sphagnum moss, bog cotton, the invasive rhododendron, the bog cranberry, bee orchid, sundew, the red squirrel, the large heath butterfly and so much more. From the ever-changing colours and textures, it’s a haven for the community and creatives alike. My own work is heavily influenced by the bog
The seaside town of Morecambe is known for its vast sands and mudflats. Its beaches are associated with biodiversity and beauty, but also danger in the form of fast tides and quicksand.
A recent industrial disaster there has associated the sands with the extractive industries of human trafficking for cheap labour. On 5th February 2004, 23 illegal and low-paid workers drowned while harvesting cockles on the beach. They were new to the area and unused to the tides. The tragedy led to new regulations on forced labour, yet modern global slavery has intensified.
The Wicklow Mountains have been a mining region for centuries, a source of iron, copper, gold, and alum. My prints reflect on a recent visit to the former mining area in the Glendalough glacial valley, where the monastic sites and National Park have proven a huge tourist draw. The Wicklows feature in my early memories of visiting Ireland and became a favourite place to hike when I relocated here.
My two prints focus on the same view of Glendalough, first remembered through hiking it Spinc Walk, with a faint print of a hiking lace forming the horizon. The second print acknowledges the potential return of mining in the Wicklows, with the recent discovery of Lithium.
I worked for many years in at the National Library of Ireland. Between 2015 and 2018, I was Project Director for the NLI of a public private partnership with the Bank of Ireland to create the exhibition Seamus Heaney: Listen Now Again. Curated by Geraldine Higgins, Professor of Irish Studies at Emory University, the exhibition includes an extended consideration of the bog in Heaney’s work.
The content of the exhibition, and my reflections on how the experience of creating it is preserved, changed and transformed in my memory, inspired the pieces I produced in the workshop.
Boora Bog is cutaway peat bog in County Offaly, managed by Bórd na Mona and used to produce fuel, principally milled peat for electricity generation at Ferbane power station. The environmental and archaeological significance of the area has long been known and was acquired by the Irish Wildlife Federation.
It was not until 2019 that industrial peat production ceased completely on the site, however. It is now a public amenity with walking and cycling trails, and a sculpture park.
In the context of extractive industry chains, Poolbeg is a conversion site where natural gas and oil are converted into electricity which is then transferred onto the national grid. Poolbeg is reclaimed land, extending from the villages of Ringsend/Irishtown into Dublin Bay.
It includes important cultural landmarks, like the Poolbeg Chimneys belong to a now-decommissioned electricity station, Poolbeg’s present constellation of energy infrastructure intersects with primary sites of extraction elsewhere. I wonder about what all of this might mean for Poolbeg’s, and the surrounding communities’, different potential futures.
My site is the ghost of Clontarf Island in Dublin Bay. The construction of the South and Bull Walls in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries created a scouring effect in Dublin Bay, which threatened the island’s existence.
A build-up of silt meant locals could walk out at low tide to illegally remove cartloads of sand which was sold as manure and for building purposes. What remained of the island was washed away in a storm in 1844. The site has been ‘reclaimed’ and its ghost lies somewhere beneath Clontarf Westwood Gym.
This series of prints explores the ERGO mining operations of DRDGold Limited in Johannesburg, South Africa, where the company is re-mining gold mining dumps. This re-mining involves the transportation of the mined materials through pipes to a massive tailing dam in Brakpan.
It is envisaged that once the old gold mine dumps are re-mined that they will ‘reverse the legacy of mining’ and become spaces for housing development. This series explores the toxicity of the mining sites and the tailings dam, and tries to imagine what a future housing development might look like o there previous mine lands.
These prints were created as a result of visits to Direct Provision sites. As a visitor to these centres, I have seen first hand what is lost to families when they give up their lives I their home countries to travel to the unknown.
This is further compounded by the pressure that is placed upon them by the State to confirm to a system that is not fit for purpose. Cultural identities are lost of blurred as families strive to assimilate into a new land.
Inspired by the sustainable local regreening work of Bloomin Crumlin, We decided to make the paper for printmaking from our recycled egg cartons. We began with a linocut of the
Bangor Circle road map. The circle is both a familiar landmark for Crumlin, and the site of future community greening plans. We then monoprinted local plants, including cherry, strawberry, daisy, bluebell, and nigella leaves and blooms. We were interested in the interplay of local greens with the hard concrete surfaces of the Circle.