This exhibition by Frances Bermingham and Mary Fahy will be held in the gallery at Áras Éanna from 3 to 23 June 2023

There is a pilgrim connection by land and sea to St. Brigid’s well/ Dabhach Bhríde at Liscannor, Co Clare by the people of Oileáin Árann (Inis Oírr and Inis Meáin) who traditionally visited this well on the 14th August each year making the journey across by boat. They were devoted to this well, Dabhach Bhríde, St. Brigid’s Vat or watering hole.

It is fitting for this ‘pilgrim exhibition’ to return the journey to Inis Oírr and re-establish this connection and social memory to the well, by both coastal communities.

Mary Fahy’s response to the well are a series of framed oil paintings on canvas, and Frances Bermingham’s response to the well is that of the materiality of votive offerings in the making of artifacts, objects and wearable forms to mark this. They explore memory, fading colour and form, traditions of pilgrim journeys and rituals of loss and remembrance, death and decay. They are drawn to the meaning these objects become imbued with over time.