About

            The north side of Dublin is my home. It is where I grew up, where I learned to love, to play and dance. It is also where I was raped. I have spent the past 30 years of my life shutting out the assault from my memory… and learning to forget. Although I’ve made my life on another continent, I’ve returned to my home many times over the past three decades, never allowing the demons to take away my joy of returning home and my love for Dublin. Now, in this work and narrative, I have decided to remember, to confront….to heal.

            The photographic work in my thesis exhibition is a collection of self-portraits, memories and a confrontation with a once-unspoken history:

            The venerable old secondary school, tired, sleepy, but still there.

The shortcut to school, once a swampy field, now a playground.

The field behind the houses, the secret place, the dark place.

The village church, available to all, yet closed.

            And the convent, the refuge, the Magdalene prison.

              The stifled survivor, silent no more.