Mid-Summer Night’s Dream – Draíocht mo Dhúiche Féin, was about exploring connections within a community. It made connections between young people in the community by having them work together in order to creatively interpret what it means to be part of a community. It is to be hoped that more useful work will develop from this undertaking. Projects of this kind, that I have undertaken in recent years have a number of common features, including: the establishment of a theme and its linkage with other workers in the area of art expression and through the making of a connection with people in a location, often including an effort to involve them in the course of the working out of a project. The following is an outline of recent projects, with an indication of how these followed from one to another.

Stilled Lives-Closer Now, Souls Journey, Star Bridge, Twin Rivers, Library of Dreams-Bridge of Hope, needed the assistance of others for the practical purpose of seeing them into being. The work was enhanced by this connection to other people in the course of the working out of these projects. These particular works reflect upon the conflict in the Balkans during the period of the nineties. Star Bridge – Bridge of Leaps, and its initiatives grew from these works. Droichead na nAmhrán – Bridge of Songs is a current project underway. Between Star Bridge – Bridge of Leaps and Droichead na nAmhrán, I developed a series of artwork projects connection to the community in Limerick, led by Crossing-Pathway. These projects came about through the making of connections between people, either lay people or fellow practitioners. And I want to record that the lay people I have met and that have worked on projects have had a grasp precisely what intentions I have had in course of doing my work. The following information is intended to inform the reader in a concise manner about recent project work that I have done. I include suggestions about making the undertaking of and development of project-work more obstacle free.

Connection with communities and areas of education

A strand of work running projects that I have been undertaking touches upon education. This began through work in the community, assisting in schools involving making ceramics. Young people in Southill diligently and skilfully made ceramics in considerable quantities during time I put in, from 1994 to 1995, at St Kieran’s Boys’ Primary Galvone and in the course of a well-attended Summer Course I designed and ran with colleagues from the locality, (an Arts Council Education Award was given in 1995). The ceramic work featured during ‘An evening for Bosnia’,at Limerick City Art Gallery in the summer of 1995. The children who took part in the summer school were invited to the event and a good number came on the evening, the place benefited from their presence. The events in Srebrenitza were happening as we prepared and put on the event. Later, we were told 8000 were being killed in the days and nights around this time. Thousands were missing then. I had seen Amnesty International reports of transcripts of radio communications from the area in and around Srebrenitza.