Using film and music the piece is informed by repeated visits that I made to Omey Island in the Connemara Gaeltacht. Slow paced and meditative, the work reflects the stillness I experienced during long hours spent in dark fields, listening out for the corncrake’s call. This work is grounded in my personal relationship to the Irish language, having grown up in Connemara, and being bilingual, dhá theangach/two tongues. Statistics have shown that the corncrake is only to be heard in Gaeltacht areas in Ireland, areas where the Irish language is still spoken. In this work I am drawing correlations between the political, economic, and environmental factors that have led to the decline of both the bird and the language. UNESCO states; ‘in order for a language to survive it must be bound to a living body’    n this piece, my voice moving from English to Irish, I'm inviting you dear listener to join me in an incantatory listing of the natural elements I encountered on my visits to the Island. I'm invoking you to keep the language alive in your body. To savour the physicality of the words.

Ormston House link to project.​

Videography: Tom Flanagan: Cello: Kevin Murphy: Electric Guitar & Synth: Matthew Nolan: Recorded and Mixed: Ber Quinn/Sonic 

Exhibition photographs by Jed Niezgoda