There's No One Left To Ask

THERE’S NO ONE LEFT TO ASK

This work was created by a community arts group in Liverpool with Irish roots and is an artistic response to the plaques on the ‘Famine Trail’ at Clarence Dock and the Liverpool Famine Memorial at St. Luke’s church in association with the Liverpool Irish Festival and artist Tadhg Devlin. The work hopes to encourage the many of Irish descent in Liverpool to learn more about the famine, their own family history and the identity of the city itself.

Created by Juliet Shreeve

I created mushroom spore prints and my fingerprints in blackberry juice threaded through with Irish phrases my Mum brought over from Wexford (Whose is it? & It's mine) to question who owns the land and the food that comes from it.

The majority of the images created have used the cyanotype process, which is one of the earliest forms of photography that was developed in the 1840s by Englishman Sir John Herschel. Across the Irish Sea in Ireland at this time there was a period of famine and starvation known as the ‘Great Hunger’ which resulted in the death of one million people and a further two million emigrated between 1845 and 1852.

Created by Paul White

This is a reflection on how the Irish were portrayed in the past on a current story of migration in contemporary Ireland.

Collaborative piece

Piece inspired by Charles Trevelyan quote from the time of the Famine.

“[The Famine] is a punishment from God for an idle, ungrateful and rebellious country, an indolent and un-self-reliant people. The Irish are suffering from an affliction of God’s providence.” Charles Trevelyan, Assistant Secretary to Her Majesty’s Treasury, 1847 (Knighted, 1848, for overseeing famine relief)

Created by Juliet Shreeve

Poem addresses historical causes of Irish famines beyond the potato blight, framed by a few of the shocking quotes from the time.