1916 Sackville Street Art Project

I’ve been very busy with college and so this blog has been very quiet but now class is finished for the summer and I’m back! Here is a brilliant project my class and I were a part of.  The Sackville Street art project is part of the celebration of 100 years since the Easter Rising. 485 people died during the six days of the uprising and 262 of them were civilians.  This project remembers each civilian and gives all of them a home.

Each of us chose a person and through research and artistic license we created a home in memory of that person.  The houses could be in any 3D form and be as literal or as imaginative as we liked. I chose Elizabeth Hanratty who was 30 years old when she died.  There wasn’t much information on her which is a pity – it was like she disappeared from history.  I do know that she was a domestic worker, that she could read and write and she was from county Meath and had moved to  Dublin. She was killed on Moore Street which is where the rebellion ended but I couldn’t find out how she died.

I recreated a ‘Dutch Billy’ house for her which was the kind of house on the street where she died.  I hung laundry out of the upper windows on poles like the people in the tenements used to.  The houses are on display in the botanic gardens and will soon be moving for an all Ireland tour.

I started with a clay slab that I scored the design into.  I then made a box shape which I reinforced to support the upper floors. I cut out the shapes I needed next and let the clay harden for a week.

Ceramic street project

I carved into the front when the clay was leather hard after drying out.  I cut into the windows and added brick lines.  I added underglaze after it was fired. I used a very diluted mixture and wiped it back as I used it.

I then added image transfers of newspaper advertisements from the time of the rising and the area in which Elizabeth died.

At the 1916 Sackville street exhibit

To find out more about this wonderful project go to 1916 Sackville street Art website .

Me and my project