Nostalgia 1 -- The notion of returning home -

Nostalgia /Definition - The notion of returning home from the Greek words Nostos and algos combine to define a condition of ACHING to return home and a inner sadness.

In Ireland we always talk of The Irish Diaspora but speaking more recently to Venezuelans and reading the stories if displaced Palestinians living in foreign countries makes me feel that the Irish Diaspora is more historical than actual. But there is no doubt that this diaspora has framed and for a great part moulded the idea of what it is to be Irish.

NOSTALGIA -- The word is surprisingly new and termed first as a condition or more correctly a state resulting in numerous side effects. First used to define a condition Swiss soldiers suffered while fighting abroad. It was a mental state brought on from being away from home and suffering a deep aching sadness with the resulting stress manifested in many physical side effects. Nostalgia was seen as an illness initially, a condition that people had to recover from but as we know more through empirical observation and accumulating data we are beginning to realize the beneficial and healing factors related to the notion of nostalgia.

Why do we feel nostalgia? - Clay Routledge - Bing video

Title -- Brillo 2012

Dimensions - ( H x W x D ) - 30 x 17 x 35cm

Medium – Pencil, gouach, gold leaf.

The beginning of these works orginated from my own experiences of nostalgia. Although at the time I wasn't aware of what nostalgia actually was. Previously I had thought of it as a warm FUZZINESS for times gone by and a wanting to return to those times. But on investigating further I found that nostalgia is much more complicated than that and that it's meaning even changes as we change and begin to understand more about ourselves.

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BRILLO was a common word where I grew up but now it sounds quite dated. I was surprised to discover in Spanish in means BRIGHTNESS.

The estate where I grew up must have felt like the final frontier to my parents when they moved there in the late sixties. At the end of the Loreto Row there was a large wall and on the other side was what seemed to me like savage wilderness. The contrast from beautiful wild greenery to pebble dash and bare concrete was stark. In the eighties there were no trees on the streets and few cars in our estate which added to the greyness, even the roads were poured concrete not tarmac then. The nearest supermarket was three kilometers away and of course we didn't have a car.

When Luke Kelly sang about the 'Rare oul times ' my mother was quick to add that there was nothing nostalgic about them. The times were tough and people suffered. It's funny when I think now of our house and the stuff that happened, I don't feel nostalgic but my memories are found ones.

Dublin In The Rare Old Times - Luke Kelly - YouTube

The house in my drawings and sculptures became metaphores depicting and symbolizing emotions and human acts. The handkerchief and thorns relate to martyrs and sacrifice. The thorn branches bending under the stress as the house marches blindly forward. There are buds of green though, even in our darkest hours there was still humour and life in my family home.

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You could often profile a family or the people within a certain house on how they kept their garden and the exterior. Like Flan O 'Brian's ' Third Policeman ' it was as if the molecules and atoms of the people passed into the walls of their dwellings - Flann O’Brien Splits the Atom | Lapham’s Quarterly (laphamsquarterly.org)

180,000 of these corporation houses were built between 1941-60 and to me they are the greatest achievement of the Free State of Ireland. Flags never gave me any sense of pride but this really did, an incredible achievement for a country after a war of independance and a civil war The Free State still had the ability to give dignity to it's working poor.

A century of housing: How the State built Ireland’s homes – The Irish Times

I woke up one night with my legs aching for some reason and I couldn't sleep. My sister who was eleven years older than I tore up a sheet into strips and tied some around my legs. After I could feel the bandages strapped around my legs more than the aching and I fell back asleep.

The 'bandage' around the house is something keeping it together but also it's blinding the house. I see it as a strength that has to come from within a person or a family and then it eminates outwards eventually it's love, empathy and good memories that keeps us together in times of great difficulty.

Brené Brown on Empathy vs Sympathy - YouTube