Arts Week with Judy Murphy

They call it a síbín, but the ‘illegal boozer’ that members of the Belfast arts collective, Array, have created at Nuns’ Island Arts Centre in Galway city centre is as impressive as many legally licensed premises down South – more impressive than some. Síbíns might have gone out of fashion in this part of Ireland, but they remain popular in the North, especially in Belfast, where the 11-strong collective is based, explains artist Stephen Millar of the group.

This one forms part of The Druthaib’s Ball, a major exhibition from Array which won the prestigious 2021 Turner Art Prize – the first time a group from Northern Ireland took Britain’s leading arts award.

The Druthaib’s Ball was conceived by the members as a wake –  celebrating life and death – to mark the 100th anniversary of Ireland’s partition. On one wall of the síbín, a 35-minute film is playing. It was made during the commemoration ‘ball’, in Belfast’s Black Box venue last year.

Meanwhile, a collection of work on the síbín’s shelves and walls represent aspects of life in Northern Ireland – past and present. There’s more than 150 pieces, large and small, including paintings, political banners, a triptych of three stopped clocks, a kettle and a bata scór – a stick with a notch that was used in schools in Ireland during Victorian times to ensure children didn’t speak Irish.  The stopped clocks, meanwhile, with pictures of Belfast City Hall, Stormont and the EU Parliament in Strasbourg, are stopped at 19:21, 20:16 and 20:21 respectively – key years in Northern Ireland’s history.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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