Nicola Anthony

Murmuration

2023, O’Donoghue Centre, University of Galway, Galway Co., Ireland

Permanent public sculpture with poem by Louis De Paor

Stainless Steel, 300 (W) x 300 (D) x 100 (H) cm

Murmuration is inspired by the Irish language poem ‘Daoine Uaisle’ by Louis de Paor, and comprises over a hundred metal birds suspended in flight with the poem’s words cut into their wings.

Daoine Uaisle portrays crowds of people walking past an unseen, homeless, Romanian woman in the street - surrounded by people yet still incredibly alone. The poem was written about the1990s, when there was a flow of migration from Romania to Ireland. De Paor creates a picture of the loneliness and lack of welcome that was felt then by migrants, in contrast to the city of Galway being alive with the sounds, smells and sights of culture. Still relevant in today’s world, this poem is reborn and resurfaced.

Here as an installation, the poem itself becomes displaced, migrating, re-interpreted.

The depiction of murmurations of starlings started to form part of the artist’s lexicon after her research into isolated communities in 2019. Sketchbook drawings about migration incorporated the birds as an allegory for the many people across the world who have had to migrate from their homes and settle in a new village, city, land or community. 

“In nature, the birds’ coordination is caused by thousands of individual movements and instinctive actions. This phenomenon is called emergent behaviour, where they appear choreographed but are in fact all acting independently. The parallels with how humans behave in a crowd or as part of a society became part of my research around belonging: From the outside each individual appears like they know where they fit in, which can make it incredibly hard for someone from outside the community to find their place.”

Nicola Anthony

This sculpture was commissioned as part of the Aistriú project, with support from University of Galway, Arts in Action and Galway 2020, and it will be included in the Galway Poetry Trail. We are very grateful to the University of Galway Buildings and Estates team and in Drama Studies department for their support.

Daoine Uaisle

Poem by Louis De Paor

______________________

On the holy streets

of the City of the Tribes,

where legend has it

that Cromwell stabled his horses

in the sanctuary of a church,

there’s a smell of spices in the air

that would whet

the appetite of God’s wife.

A tin-whistle tune blows

from the belly of the old town,

the breath of history

through the cold walls

of South Connemara.

In the middle of the market

with her cow-eyes,

a Romanian woman

sits at the gates of St Nicholas’s,

a placard around her neck

as though she were admitting

a mortal sin before the elders:

Ladies and gentlemen...

says the scrawny handwriting

and we wouldn’t pass her

any quicker if she exposed

a breast or a withered limb,

Ladies and gentlemen... please.

The polystyrene cup at her feet

is filled to the brim

with the best wishes

of the Minister for Justice (sic)

her stomach singing with hunger.

Supported and commissioned by:

This sculpture was commissioned as part of the Aistriú project, with support from University of Galway, Arts in Action and Galway 2020, and it will be included in the Galway Poetry Trail. We are very grateful to the University of Galway Buildings and Estates team and in Drama Studies department for their support.