Civil War prisoners inspires local artist’s exhibition at historic gaol

The latest visitor figures for Kilmainham Gaol show that over 254,000 people pass through the doors every year, at the fourth most popular paid-for OPW attraction in the country. That's the scale of exposure Kiltoom artist Margo McNulty has been enjoying since last May with her 'Voices' exhibition, inspired by the women imprisoned there during the Civil War a century ago.

In 2023, Margo, a native of Dugort, Achill Island, in Mayo, received the prestigious Markiewicz Award, funded by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. Her project entitled 'Voices' was inspired by the unheard and perhaps silenced voices of women incarcerated in Kilmainham Gaol during the Civil War.

During the project, Margo was allowed access to the museum’s archives. Her paintings and prints based on selected objects from the archive hauntingly evoke the atmosphere of Kilmainham Gaol and offer glimpses of the personalities of the women prisoners jailed there during 1922 and 1923.

Many of these prisoners were members of Cumann na mBan and included such well known names as Countess Markiewicz, the first woman to elected to the British Parliament in 1918, and later elected Minister for Labour in the first Dáil, along with artist Grace Gifford Plunkett, who famously married Joseph Plunkett in the prison chapel before he was executed for his part in the 1916 Rising, amongst many others.

The Kiltoom artist’s striking and evocative work is inspired by personal items which once belonged to the women prisoners and now survive in both public and private collections.

Since May last year, well over 20 of Margo’s paintings and photo-etchings have been on display in Kilmainham Gaol Museum as part of her 'Voices' exhibition which continues until the end of May

The exhibition runs in parallel with ‘hearts ne’er waver’: The Women Prisoners of the Irish Civil War', which explores the experiences of 600 women imprisoned between November 1922 and December 1923 in Mountjoy Prison, Kilmainham Gaol and a special female political prison camp set up in the former North Dublin Union in Grangegorman.

The exhibition tells the stories of hunger strikes, forced removals and escape attempts, as well as prison concerts, fancy dress parties and games of rounders played in the prison yards using a chair leg as a bat.

Margo's star in artistic circles continues to rise and her recent and prestigious Markiewicz bursary is testament to the sustained quality of her work over the past decade.

Back in 2018, she exhibited work based on her 'Archive' project in the Luan Gallery, Athlone, followed in 2020 with a very successful exhibition in Roscommon Arts centre entitled, 'Duality'.

A year later, Mayo County Council awarded her a bursary to undertake a project entitled 'Keepsakes in collaboration with the Jackie Clarke Collection in Ballina'. As part of this award, the Mayo native created multiple pieces of art based on personal objects or keepsakes handed down within families in the county, specifically relating to the period 1916-1922.

Families from all over Mayo came forward with personal objects, which were very significant in the lives of individuals and families during the turbulent period in our history. This project culminated in an exhibition in the Jackie Clarke Collection, Ballina.

Margo’s work has consistently centred on themes including hidden history, memory and place.

Her work concerns itself with episodes of chance, the intersection of personal and public histories and, in particular, how these histories and meanings can be embedded in material objects preserved through generations.

Admission to the exhibition in Kilmainham Gaol Museum is free, open until May, and no booking is required.