'And They Became More Irish Than the Irish Themselves'

A multimedia project exploring the performance, perception, and persistence of Irishness—through fashion, photography, music, video, corporeal action, voice, research, and lived experience.

This body of work draws from both public archives and personal materials—older lyrics, performances, fragments of faith, memory, and place. Some of these are re-enacted, reinterpreted, or responded to anew—in light of the Ireland I live in now, and the perspective I hold today as a woman, a Christian, a teacher, and a public servant.

It explores the uneasy space between caricature and reality: Paddy Irishman, the gargle, Guinness culture, the thick Dublin accent, the holy picture, the hangover. It reflects on the persistent weight of drink, class, and identity—how some things are dressed up as heritage, while others stay buried in shame or spectacle.

The work questions a surface-level hunger for nostalgie de la boue—that romantic pull toward the grit and charm of ‘real Irishness’—while asking: do we really embrace the complexity of working-class Dublin life, or just costume it?

This isn’t a gesture of blame, nor an act of rejection. It’s an open-ended inquiry—layered, self-reflexive, and unresolved. An embodied reflection unfolding across voice, image, action, and form.