HOLLY MULLARKEY
Ceramic Artist

In 2026, funded by Artist in the Community Project Realisation Award, for this project, Porcelain Voices, I held 10 Ceramic workshops in Galway with survivors of Mother and Baby Homes from different parts of Ireland. This project collaborated with four different local women’s groups in the Tuam hinterland in sharing the grief of survivors’ experience through voice and needle craft.
Breeda Murphy, chairperson of the Tuam Mother and Baby Alliance, facilitated survivors attending these workshops through her advocacy. A Ceramic Workshop was also held as part of a Headford Lace Project three day workshop. Headford Lace Project provided the lace used to imprint the porcelain in survivors’ workshops. Headford Yarn Bombers provided crochet pieces used in this project.
Two local female choirs, Campbells choir and Mairead Berrill’s choir, together conducted by Nicola Joyce, were filmed on Knockma. Choir members sang a tradition Irish lullaby, Éiníní, sung to put small birds to sleep, while carrying porcelain vessels containing porcelain bones and porcelain tears. The purpose of the lullaby was to soothe the passage of the bones from the exhumation taking place at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home. The porcelain vessels were placed at the top of Knockma, as an ancient hilltop offering, to symbolise a transition from darkness to light. The film, entitled Sky Burial, was filmed by John Conway of Bula Bosca Films. Knockma overlooks the Tuam hinterland, from where many of the Tuam mothers came.