HOLLY MULLARKEY
Ceramic Artist
Commemorating Tuam Baby burials installation of 2016.
This work commemorates the revelation of 796 infants buried on the grounds of the Tuam Mother and Baby home. Porcelain is a symbol of beauty that is delicate and fragile with an innocence in its purity. These shoes symbolise little coffins for the soles/souls of the infants whose feet never walked the earth. Each pair of individual hand made porcelain shoes honours their little feet.
The shoes were exhibited at vigils for the infants in Tuam on Nov 2016 and Aug 2018. Survivors and their families have taken pairs of the shoes and put the names of their lost loved ones on the shoes as memorials in their own homes. Ten pairs have been buried on the top of Knock Ma, the highest hill top in the Tuam hinterland echoing the ancient hill top offerings of Crete.
Commemorating Tuam Baby Burials
Porcelain Shoes
Porcelain feet
Born out of
The Great Mystery
Of Life
Outcast
I Cast
For your Holy Feet
Porcelain Shoes
To wear
In Heaven
I sculpt
Fine Porcelain vessels
For your soles
Little feet
Unwelcome
Mother alone
In childbirth
Outcast
I cast
From fine white clay
Little coffins
For your souls
Little coffins
To carry you
Homewards
Heavenwards
I place these coffins
On Knoc Ma
Fairy Hill
Overlooking Tuam Hinterlands
A silent prayer offering
Elevated womb
Holding sacred memories
Of child birth cries
I kneel
I place
This prayer into
Elevated Silence.
