That the history of the Republic of Ireland is intwined with Catholicism is a truism that barely merits repeat. The country’s constitution, written in 1937, was influenced greatly by the now-disgraced Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid; a prelude to the near-total stranglehold of power the church would hold on Irish society for decades to come.
President Éamon De Valera with Archbishop McQuaid. Irish Press. (date unknown) Available at: https://mnutty.medium.com/the-big-one-lily-7ee298f2e8ad (Accessed: 15 May 2023).
Perhaps the most outward showing of the Irish people’s ardent faith occurred in 1979 upon the visit of Pope John Paul II to the country. Over 1.25 million* people attended his mass in Dublin’s Phoenix park, the highpoint of a papal visit marked by a zealous fervour extreme in its devotion. More than ostentatious pageantry, the visit is highlighted by many as a leading to the notorious ‘pro-life’ eight amendment to the constitution in 1983. This is to say nothing of the, as yet undiscovered, ongoing abuse scandals that darkened parishes up and down the country.
Pope John Paul II at Phoenix Park. Irish Foreign Ministry. (2014) The visit of Pope John Paul II to Ireland in September 1979. (Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryLwmb-15dc)
Flash forward nearly four decades and the papal visit of Pope Francis presented a marked contrast. The relative emptiness of Phoenix park betraying a widespread indifference and, in parts, outright hostility towards the church. Against the backdrop of the Mother and Baby Home scandal and a successful campaign to repeal the eight amendment, the visit underlined the churches weakened position and the Republic’s progressive transformation.
Surely, one could not wish for a more potent metaphor of the subject of my enquiry. Particularly given the large volumes of promotional garb, souvenirs, and tat that went along with both visits.
McBurney, L. (2018) An aerial view of the crowd / Pope Francis at Phoenix Park in Dublin as Pope Francis attends the closing Mass at the World Meeting of Families, as part of his visit to Ireland. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/27/europe/pope-mass-ireland-crowds-intl/index.html (Accessed: 15 May 2023)..
* This was a third of the country’s population at the time.
Return to Celtworld is an artistic practice and fictional Irish folklore brand. The project takes inspiration not from Irish folklore itself but the educational amusement park Celtworld, which briefly operated in Tramore, Co.Waterford during the early 1990s. The practice prioritises a found-object approach, using AI-generated imagery and clip art to examine the construction of cultural identity in a global world.
Return to Celtworld t-shirt featuring an AI-generated graphic and detail from interviewReturn to Celtworld scarfDesign for a Tea Towel
Celtworld opened in 1992, My husband’s job had moved to Tramore from Kilkenny a couple of years earlier, we had a 5 year old child and two much older (20/22) children who were both away studying. Tramore was a rather forlorn and worn-out town at that stage. Its hay-day as summer holiday destination for Dubs was past, it had the beach, the amusements and a rather dubious caravan park and that was about all. It was a tired backwater, pleasant enough place to live, but not much going for it.
So when word got out that a new attraction was to be built there was great interest. The curious round, white building went up and rumours abounded as to what was being done to the interior. As far as I recall (and this may be incorrect) they had an initial offer for locals to attend, I know I went at a very early stage. I remember being a bit underwhelmed at the talking tree. We sat in a ‘slice of pie’ shaped cinema type room and a show began, a mix of special effects, bits of video etc. I can’t remember it all that clearly, some of it was well done, some was laughably feeble. There was a film clip (I think, might have been a photograph) of a young girl – maybe 4 or 5 – dressed as some sort of fairy (she had wings and flowers in her hair), sitting on an unconvincingly decorated swing, local rumour was that she was granddaughter of one of the Directors or investors or whatever and had been included at his request. At around that time Dunnes Stores had started selling very pretty children’s dresses, and it appeared that it was a Dunnes dress that she was wearing, which caused more amusement. She looked as though she was in a commercial photographer’s set piece/dressed-up-child photograph, I don’t recall how she was supposed to fit into the story.
My memories are a bit confused between the ‘Celtic experience’ around the same time in the Museum of Treasures in Waterford, and the (much later) opening of the new Waterford Glass experience, I am trying to sift out the bits I am reasonably sure of.
I was vaguely aware that the seating moved in Celtworld, but it did not feel like that, it seemed as though it was the scenes that moved. Some of the scenes were cartoons on a screen and some were actors projected on a transparent screen with an environment behind. There was something a bit amateurish about it. Jim Fitzpatrick was very prominent at the time and his artwork was impressive, but it was not supported by the presentations, this is an impression as I can’t actually recall any visuals apart from the child on the swing. I think there was a roaring monster-man in one of the scenes, did it come out over the audience somehow? The visuals did not hang together, there was no cohesion. I vaguely recall a long bit of exposition by one character (a monk?) that was more like a museum presentation than an entertainment. The whole thing predated CGI and more sophisticated special effects. Was it generally impressive on the whole? I don’t recall being all that impressed, maybe it was just me. I really don’t recall anyone saying ‘that’s an amazing show, you should go and see it’.
Local consensus was that, while it was interesting, once you had seen it you would not be inclined to go again, there was a strong sense that it was a one-off show, and if the presentation was not going to change why would people go more than once? This turned out to be the case, people did go to see it, but the numbers were not great. We could never understand how it could be envisaged as an on-going attraction. I think we were also aware that the quality of the graphics did not really hold up as a long term proposition.
Most of the Tramore residents were aghast at how much it had cost to put together. A cost of 4m was bandied about and the general opinion was that, as with most things at that time, money had gone into pockets, whose pockets was not entirely clear. It was an extraordinary amount of money at the time and no-one could see where it had been spent. No-one was really surprised when it closed, but there was a lot of anger at the waste of money. Subsequently the building was used as a nightclub, South. It was never very convincing as a venue though and did not last long. I think there were a couple of inquiries/investigations, but as usual nothing came of it.
I think people were tired and cynical at the time, there was so much casual corruption and ‘cute hoors’ making a few bob out of anything and everything that no-one was really surprised at Celtworld’s appearance and speedy disappearance. Remarkably when the next big project, Splashworld came along, people were not put off by the Celtworld nonsense and many locals (including ourselves) contributed to the fundraising. It came across as an obviously better proposition as an attraction for the town, it is still going strong and has been a great benefit to the town.
Kind Regards, ————-
Explaining my project to this (very kind) participant, I stumbled upon a description which I believe does justice to the essence of my enquiry. I wrote that my process examines “commodified, kitsch forms [and that] Celtworld was, in some ways, a potent example of this – but also a very real place that may be remembered by very real people in very human ways. By digging for these stories, I’m hoping to connect to this human aspect and create something of a sincere letter to Ireland’s recent past.”
From here on my enquiry evolved to explore the forms we can use to tell such stories and how these relates to issues of value and taste. I chose to work within the mediums of merchandise, creating a fictional brand that exists somewhere between a fashion house and a tourist shop. Each piece was created using a combination of found imagery and AI-generated graphics, combined with text from interviews such as the one above.
u/Hectorh · I didn’t mind the decapitated head at all. But that eyeball scared the shit outa me as a youth.. And I remember some ghostly figured appearing behind a glass pane at the start of the tour. Bit of Disney mirror trickery. Would love a retour now ha
u/Tabrisocculta · My memory of the place was sitting in a theatre like room, stuff was going on on the stage, and then, out of nowhere, this giant eye dropped down from above the stage! I was probably around 7 or 8 at the time, and was seriously freaked out.
u/Stakey · Ha! I remember this, we were on a summer holiday in Waterford and popped in to see what the fuss was about. The folks mentioned that it was my younger sisters birthday at the box office. There was a tree with a couple of decapitated heads hanging from it in the main hall. Above it or beside it was some kind of giant speaking eyeball. Anyway it comes down from the ceiling and singles out my sister, some teenager having an absolute ball, scares the hell out of her saying it knows it’s her birthday. Public freakout ensues and we had to bail, scarred for life so she was.
u/ [deleted] There was a big goblin thing in the entrance to it and i was terrified of it because i have a weird phobia of statues/stuffed things/effigies/whatevers that are bigger than me.
u/ Littlewrenbird I remember that there was a decapitated head hanging from a tree that you could talk to. Obvious had a camera and mic and some poor eejit in the back answering questions from kids all day.
u/ CounterSignificant· Oh yes! this is the only thing in celtworld that I properly remember, ‘cos I was wearing a Jurassic Park t-shirt, and the guy singled me out to talk to (via the “head”).
u/ Stakey Ago Ha! I remember this, we were on a summer holiday in Waterford and popped in to see what the fuss was about. The folks mentioned that it was my younger sisters birthday at the box office. There was a tree with a couple of decapitated heads hanging from it in the main hall. Above it or beside it was some kind of giant speaking eyeball. Anyway it comes down from the ceiling and singles out my sister, some teenager having an absolute ball, scares the hell out of her saying it knows it’s her birthday. Public freakout ensues and we had to bail, scarred for life so she was.
u/ Helios_505 I remember touching the shield beside the tree and the floating disembodied head telling me i will be a warrior. Also Splashworld was the bomb
As it took me some time for me to organize interviews (or indeed receive any responses), I initially had to focus my making on freely available sources from the internet. The bulk of these I found the reddit forum r/Ireland.
I found this interesting terms of my enquiry, with the process being representative of the cyclical contrtsutcion of culture (national or otherwise) in a hyper-connected world.
An (extremely truncated) reading of this might be…
National Icons are created > National icons are exported and modified > Modified national icons are reimported > National icons are integrated and re-disseminated domestically and abroad
This is potent in the case of Ireland as a small island nation which relies on its large, world-wide diaspora and status as a tax haven for multi-national corporations to prosper.
Indeed, the results AI text-to-image generators can also be seen to represent a global, networked view of a given image. Created, as they are, by an algorithm trained on the collation and aggregation of innumerable similar images from across the web.
A medium-shot photograph of a plastic celtic warrior animatronic figure behind a pane of glass, indoors, titled frame, poor lighting, photorealistic style
u/ Hectorh I didn’t mind the decapitated head at all. But that eyeball scared the shit outa me as a youth.. And I remember some ghostly figured appearing behind a glass pane at the start of the tour. Bit of Disney mirror trickery. Would love a retour now ha
close-up portrait of a plastic model of Celtic warrior standing behind a pane of glass, photorealistic face, poor lighting A result
Reddit (2022) Anybody have any info / memories of celtworld? Available at: https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/8ruf2q/does_anybody_have_any_infomemories_of_celtworld/ (Accessed: 27 October 2022). Reddit (2022) Do Any of You Remember Celtworld? Available at: https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/pnkz4y/do_any_of_you_remember_celtworld/ (Accessed: 27 October 2022).
During my research, I stumbled upon Celtworld, an educational theme park that existed in the seaside town of Tramore, Waterford from 1992-95. The park is exemplary the Ireland of the time, intwined with issues of corruption but also representing the emergence of a modern, increasingly outward-looking society. Here, one can see the seeds of the Celtic Tiger begin to germinate. The first indication of a society that would enjoy (unequally shared) riches, before totally losing its head in a haze of speculative property development and Ryanair flights to the Algarve.
Upon finding Celtworld, I felt I had hit gold. My work was focusing on the postcolonial context which informs Ireland’s relationship both to the world and its own history. I was interested in Maeve Connoly’s examination of Joep Leerssen’s work on 19th-century Celticism, which describes a Gaelic Ireland “inherently characterised by its pastness” and “configured as a living fossil” (p.253). A society whose national myths have become exoticized and othered due a loss of language and culture. My suspicion was that this othering laid the groundwork for such cultural artefacts to be sold back to us (from within or abroad) in commercialised forms. I could not have wished for a more potent symbol for such a relationship than Celtworld.
I decided to emulate the work of Paul McClean, a software developer who has been using the AI text-to-image generator MidJourney to recreate the long-since defunct Dundalk Shopping Centre. Whereas Paul’s recreation is based upon his own personal memories of the place, I decided mine would build upon the real-world experiences of those who had visited Celtworld.
In this way, the project began to mirror my previous work for Unit 1 : Methods of Investigating which had focused on networked notions of space. Building upon this, the new project played with notions of memory and biography.
This turned out to be a more difficult task than I had anticipated. No only is there sparse information about Celtworld online, but finding people willing to be interviewed proved a challenge necessitating much persistence.
Some early iterations, using Dall-E 2 to imagine a generalised Celtworld.Using Photoshop to mimics the aesthetics of 90s photography.
Another early observation was that AI programmes such as Dall-E 2 are not great at specifics. They are very useful, however, in establishing a general mood – particularly when working within a framework of disposable camera aesthetics (as shot by a child in the 90s).
McClean, Paul (2022) Untitled [AI Imagery]. Available at: https://twitter.com/PaulMcDirt/status/1569776953648979980 (Accessed: 27 September 2022).
Moynihan, Karyn. (2012 Celtworld: Where Mythology Met Lasers. Available at: https://wheresgrandad.wordpress.com/2012/06/02/celtworld-where-mythology-met-lasers/(Accessed: 27 October 2022).
