Little Stories

Little Prints

2016

 

This is a personal story, which relates to a visit I made to Kilmainham gaol in 1975 as a schoolboy. It is a visit that I remember with clarity, for what reason? My childish fascination was that James Connolly had been strapped to and shot in a chair, an extraordinary thing.

When visiting the cells I looked at vague scratching on the walls of the cells and tried to decipher what I thought must be hidden messages.

On return home I wrote an essay suggesting that I had deciphered the text on the wall. That the chair was to taken apart and reassembled into 32 crucifixes, in memory of their fight and they be painted white as a sign of peace, placed in each county so people would remember. These would be small and unassuming and remind us that people are capable of extraordinary things.

These are my 32 white crucifixes.

 

(Note: The artist has produced 32 varied Collaged Lithographs for presentation to Kilmainham Jail)