Exhibition Statement:

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. The titles of the paintings are in Irish honouring the original names of these places and the memories they hold.

Rónán researched the folklore imbued in these places, their logainmneacha (Irish place names) and archaeology. He has a personal connection to many of the places visited. He performed meditations to ‘channel’ the places, like the filí (Gaelic poets) might have done. Rónán’s 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 Rónán’s contemporary life such as his grandfather’s turf cutting on Church Mountain, having never held a ‘sleán’ himself.

The 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.

Sacred places are where the return of our repressed folklore, customs and language occurs most potently. What do the gods, spirits and ancestors think of us? This exhibition remembers half-forgotten deities, historical events, folk customs and family stories in our environment. It is an exploration of our postcolonial consciousness rooted in land, and how tending to it might help us heal and navigate the environmental, industrial, spiritual and social challenges of today.