Graduate Project

I studied Design in Textiles in the Centre for Creative Arts & Media (CCAM), GMIT. For the final BA (Hons) year project, I focused on the theme of return migration and its effects on my sense of identity and national allegiances. I explored this theme through drawing, painting and embroidery. The following is my artists statement that accompanied my work:

The Outer Irish

I began my research by looking at diasporas and was interested in the effects that emigration has on identity and one’s sense of belonging. I wanted to illustrate the pull people feel between their ‘Homeland’ and their ‘Adopted Land’.

I then decided to focus on my own experience. I was born in London, my Dad is Irish and my Mum is second-generation Irish. We moved to Ireland when I was four- so we are return-migrants. Through illustrative and embroidered artwork, I aimed to convey a sense of being torn between two identities.

While looking into my family history, I found out that I had two great grandfathers with opposing allegiances- one fought for Britain in World War One, as a wire cutter in the trenches; the other had Irish Republican sympathies. The discovery that I am descended from these two men heightened my feeling of being split into two nationalities. I became interested in the period surrounding World War One and the Easter Rising and looked into textiles associated with that period. I came across World War One Silk Postcards. These postcards were hand embroidered; many were bought by soldiers to send home to their loved ones, others were exported to Britain and sold to Canadian soldiers stationed there. The postcards that caught my attention were made for Irish troops including the Connaught Rangers and Royal Irish Regiment. These examples are particularly relevant to my work as they combine motifs that represent both Ireland and England. Because these artefacts are from a period in time that I have referenced in my work and because postcards are associated with being far from home, they are an ideal format to work with.

By considering my own experience as well as my great grandfathers’ relationships with England and Ireland, I have come to realize that the pull I feel between both countries is deeply embedded through personal experiences and family history.

“Histories do not break off clean, like a glass rod; they fray, stretch and come undone like rope; and some strands never part”- Robert Hughes