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The houses are also lit from within on St Johns night and in the shots you can just about make out the bonfires lining the coast on the mainland. Echoes of sea shanties can also be heard. St Johns night is an old tradition where Bonfires are lit along the coast of Conemara. It dates back to pagan times where midsummers day was the time when fire and water acquired medicinal qualities.
The poem in the piece was written by Anna o Toole who emigrated to the states from Inishlacken in the early part of this century and it explores the sense of loss an islander has once they leave for the mainland. It is read out by her great grand daughter on her return to the island.
As one can see in Anna's poem, even when islanders move to the mainland, or emigrate, their homeland plays a major part in their consciousness. Even if the homeland exists only in memory the idea of return is critical for many dispersed communities and it extends beyond those who personally remember the home country as we can see with Lauren, Anna's great grand daughter who reads out Anna's poem in this piece. Even if they do return to the same place, that place may be profoundly changed (Oxfeld and Long 2004).
One can see this on Inishlacken. The island has been uninhabited for forty years but before that it was inhabited for thousands of years. For the first time the islanders have to deal with the idea of their original home becoming a ghost town. The rusty skeleton of the windmill once used to pump fresh water into the reservoir tank, a scattering of cottages all in ruins and grass grown boreens undermined by rabbit burrows are all that remain of a once thriving community.
Below: installation Shots of Tulca show
Above Jennifer Cunningham
Above Maria Brennan Miram O Donaghue
Above Maeve Curtis Ceilia Danell