IRELAND'S 32 (1994)
Etchings on windows featuring outlines of the 32 counties of Ireland with a few lines from a song about each.
In 1994 I was invited to make a work for the newly built Irish Centre in Hammersmith in London. I traced out the 32 counties of Ireland and then pulled them apart and scattered the shapes like a jumbled 32 piece jigsaw. These shapes were reconfigured to be etched into 7 window panels on the South face of the building. I identified a song for each of the 32 counties and a few song words were etched alongside the outline of the county. Whilst the content of the work may seem purely abstract and decorative from a distance, it reveals itself in close-up, when Irish exiles recognize the coastline, river-run or edge of their home county and the line of the local song. I like to think of the piece as a silent musical work.
