A Mythic Journey Through Wicklow & Kildare with Rónán Ó Raghallaigh | S6 Ep15

KnotWork Myth & Storytelling

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OUR STORY

As part of our Myth Workers and Culture Makers series, the artist Rónán Ó Raghallaigh takes us on a tour of the landscape and storyscape of his native County Kildare and neighboring County Wicklow. This area was home to Fionn mac Cumhaill (AKA Finn McCool) and his legendary band of warriors, the Fianna.

OUR GUEST

Rónán Ó Raghallaigh is an artist and researcher who received an MFA from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin in 2021. He has exhibited his work in solo and group exhibitions in Ireland and internationally.

Working through painting and performance, Rónán’s practice engages with pre-Christian Ireland as a means for contemporary postcolonial action. He visits sacred sites and researches their archaeology, history and folklore, providing a spring for new work. Paintings are made in the studio, while performances on site are filmed or live. He is re-learning the Irish language, and uses it during performances, for work-titles and in written texts interwoven with English and his vernacular dialect.

Rónán’s work is a constant act of remembering and cultivating alternative ways of being in response to colonialism, Christianity and industry. Storytelling and ritual become a practice for befriending our environment, considering identity and encouraging healing.

Find Rónán on Instagram: @ronan.o.raghallaigh and at ronanoraghallaigh.com

OUR CONVERSATION

• Rónán’s approaching to creative visionary art work includes accessing the consciousness through channeling and trance work. It’s a form of DIY spirituality and decolonization work.
• Logainmneacha: Irish placenames
• The power of well-visited sacred sites where others are also engaging with spiritual work, and also being with folks who are simply out enjoying a beautiful day
• The research and revival of imbas forosnai and other druidic practices to access inspiration
• The power of naming. In 1972 Brian O'Doherty staged a performance called Name Change, in which he changed his name to “Patrick Ireland” in protest of Bloody Sunday in Derry.
• The role of ritual, and Rónán’s performance art piece: Bealtaine Baptism
• Amergin’s Song with its proclamations of “I am” as a form of pre-Christian prayer.
• A recent performance art piece An Tobar agus an Chloch

Music at the start of the show is by Beth Sweeney and Billy Hardy: billyandbeth.com

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