Men of Ireland, 1980
A performance examining Irish male stereotypes

Men of Ireland considers Irish male stereotypes and the different factors that combine in one personality. Each of the 9 characters is performed to the accompaniment of a relevant recorded soundtrack.

Walking into the gallery…….., I saw nine life-sized cut-out figures arranged in a circle round a map of Ireland which was appropriately painted green and orange. The figures representing the Men of Ireland were worker, cleric, Orangeman, youth, romantic, Paddy Irishman, paramilitary, businessman and drunk. 

Each day…….,a Carrickfergus man ………wearing round steel-rimmed spectacles, dons the appropriate costume and acts out each of the nine characters with particular emphasis on his relationship to the map, which of course represents Ireland. 

The worker in dungarees is the first to come on and it is he who actually paints the map, the cleric in his wisdom prays above it, the youth creates havoc by walking on the wet paint, the drunk spills porter on it, and so on.

There is nothing obscure about the performance which finally emerges in terms of a collection of lifestyles of lifestyles, varieties of attitudes, combination of differences, types and stereotypes, discords and harmonies etc. Perhaps a one man ‘Sense of Ireland’ would most aptly describe the artist’s performance.

Bláithín O Ciobháin
The Irish Press
February 8, 1980