EXHIBITION| 'Turais Taibhsí' by Rónán Ó Raghallaigh

There are sacred places in the land. They hold ghosts. We have disturbed them.

Each painting in this exhibition is the result of a personal pilgrimage to a sacred place in the Irish landscape. I researched the folklore imbued in these places, their logainmneacha (Irish place names) and archaeology. I have a personal connection to many of the places visited. I performed meditations to ‘channel’ the places, like the filí used to do. My research and meditation visions formed a spring for new paintings.

Sacred places are sites of conflict. Their folklore has been overlaid by Christianity. Their Irish names have been translated. Archaeological finds have been removed. They are damaged naturally, but some have been purposefully vandalised like at the Hill of Tara. Some are destroyed by state-approved industry such as quarrying of the Hill of Allen by Roadstone Ltd. Most sites are on private land. They are often surrounded by Sitka spruce forests. They prompt ancestral memories at odds with my contemporary life such as my grandfather’s turf cutting on Church Mountain- I have never held a ‘sleán.’

My painting method mirrors these conflicts- some parts are deliberately unfinished and obscured. Visual motifs from various periods of vernacular Irish art are overlaid on top of each other, blended with abstraction.

Rónán Ó Raghallaigh is an artist from Kildare working with painting, writing and performance. His practice engages with pre-Christian Ireland as a means for contemporary postcolonial action. Folklore, history and archaeology rooted in the Irish landscape form a foundation for research. He is re-learning Irish as an adult which greatly informs his work.

Rónán graduated from NCAD in 2021 with an MFA Art in the Contemporary World and has exhibited his work in Ireland and abroad. ‘Turais Taibhsí’ marks his second solo exhibition in Belfast, having exhibited ‘Vae Victis’ in Platform Arts in 2022.

For more information please contact Rónán Ó Raghallaigh

ronanoreillyartist@gmail.com