Whisper, 2019, Oils & Mixed Media on Wood
Fighting With Shadows
A BODY OF WORK ON EMIGRATION, IDENTITY AND THE LEGACY OF IRELAND’S GREAT FAMINE
2019
Some stories make their way home before the people who lived them ever can. Fighting With Shadows began when an American family, the Kings, traced their roots to the ruins of their family cottage in Straide, County Mayo — in the very field beside Sweeney’s studio.
Nancy’s trunk, bearing the traces of her journey.
The title of this collection comes from the recorded words of a Mayo famine victim, who described the experience of helplessness and oppression as “fighting with shadows”. The phrase became the emotional foundation for a body of work that began with a commission from the King family to honour Nancy, whose mother, Bridget, left Straide in the 1920s, carrying a single trunk, and never returned.
Leaving, 2019, Oils on wood
Working from the ruined walls of the King family cottage, its broken stone and moss-covered surfaces, Sweeney paints what remains — the memory and weight of departure at the heart of Ireland’s broader emigration story. The resulting works form part of the permanent collection of Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum, at Quinnipiac University, CT, USA.
“I cannot portray the full horrors of that period, but through these paintings I hope to honour what was left behind and acknowledge the profound act of migration that shaped so many Irish families. The soil remembers. The ruined walls remain. Within them are stories that continue to echo across generations and oceans.”
Arriving, 2019, Oils on Wood
Abandoned, 2019, Oils on Canvas
“No part of this island was left unscathed; the soil holds the memories.”
Selected Works
