We’re Returning to Celtworld.

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.

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).

Experimenting with language.

Irish occupies an important but fraught place in the history of the island, inextricable from notions of nationhood and authenticity. As a result of colonial oppression, most Irish people no longer speak their native tongue. Indeed, since the founding of the state successive attempts to re-educate the populace have largely floundered.

As such, the language holds the potential to be viewed in purely symbolic rather than linguistic terms. Divorced, for many, from its utility as a communicative device it my be seen as representing a form of Irishness unattained by many. Such a reading speaks to post-colonial and continuing hang-ups around Irish identity and the countries place in the world. As the title of Fintan O’Toole’s excellent personal history of the state suggests, “We Don’t Know Ourselves”.

Further experiments in print using a collage-based approach.

Megalith 01 (Legananny Dolmen).
Single colour hand-pulled screen print.
150GSM Frosted Silver paper
420 x 594mm

Pattern created from Megalithic forms – possibly to be used in the creation of a jersey for a local football / GAA team? Repurposing folkloric / mythological forms towards community-orientated ends.

Hillen, Seàn (1995) The Oracle at O’Connel Street Bridge [Collage]. Available at: https://www.artsy.net/artwork/sean-hillen-the-oracle-at-oconnell-st-bridge-dublin (Accessed: 27 September 2022).

“When I go on about climate, people always say, ‘sure we’re Ireland, we’re tiny, we’ve a tiny carbon footprint, what’s the point if we do anything?’ and one thing I always like to remind people of is that our carbon footprint is tiny but our cultural footprint is massive. We were the first to do the smoking ban and that was copied all around the world, we were the first to have the plastic bag tax and that was copied, St. Patrick’s Day or Halloween, these are Irish holidays celebrated around the world – let’s make St. Patrick’s Day about the environment.”

– Blindboy Boatclub speaking on RTE’s The Late Late Show (November 2019)


Following this train of thought, I was initially drawn to the idea of adapting folkloric traditions to help meet the challenges of modern living. I experimented with the form of Wrenboy costumes (also know as Mummer’s across Britain). Traditionally made from straw, Wrenboys still wear these costumes in parts of West Cork and Kerry. Originally a part of hunting traditions and festivities surrounding rural weddings; I sought to remake these costumes from recycled materials. Unfortunately this proved more of a challenge than I was capable of, with my ideal material (cardboard) being less-than-suitable for weaving.

(Year Unknown) Strawboy’s Hat [Straw]. National Museum of Ireland. Available at: https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Collections-Research/Folklife-Collections/Folklife-Collections-List-(1)/Religion-and-Calendar-Customs/Straw-costumes-and-objects (Accessed: 30 October 2022).

Quinlan, G. (2012) Aughakillymaude Mummers, Fermanagh. Available at: https://grainnequinlan.com/strawboys/aughakillymaude-mummers-fermanagh-2/ (Accessed: 30 October 2022).

RTE (2019) Blindly Boatclub on How Ireland Can Change the World. 02 November 2019 Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuK9_YzQS-Q&feature=emb_imp_woyt (Accessed: 30 October 2022).