ROMANTIC IRELAND
EVA International is delighted to announce that Eimear Walshe’s ROMANTIC IRELAND has been acquired into Ireland’s National Collection at IMMA, the Irish Museum of Modern Art.
ROMANTIC IRELAND (2024) stages soapy, dramatic encounters between character archetypes from the 19th–21st centuries set on the site of an unfinished earth build. These figures occupy an abstracted ruin, a site under simultaneous construction and demolition. The soundtrack is a five-voice opera describing the scene of an eviction, composed by Amanda Feery with a libretto by Walshe. The work confronts us with narratives of empire’s displacement and ruination, the criminalisation of the colonised, and intergenerational conflict and betrayal.
ROMANTIC IRELAND was originally presented for the Irish Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024 and was most recently exhibited as part of the 41st EVA International in Limerick. EVA also acted as the coordinating production partner in Walshe’s tour of Ireland—A National Tour in Fragments. In collaboration with the artist, elements of the artwork were presented alongside a series of newly commissioned works across the island between August and November 2025. This included LANCERS/LOVERS, a new performance by Walshe for traditional Irish musicians and dancers, performed in the dancehall of St John’s Pavilion, Limerick; a tour by the artist of the historic Strokestown Park House, Roscommon, a site of inspiration for Walshe’s Venice project; and in Belfast and Dublin, two live choral performances of the operatic soundtrack for ROMANTIC IRELAND, presented alongside new compositions—NEST by Amanda Feery, and Breastplate for a dead child by Dylan Kerr and Eimear Walshe.
On ROMANTIC IRELAND, EVA Director Matt Packer states:
“There are few other works that speak of the conditions of contemporary Ireland in the way that ROMANTIC IRELAND does, and none that are more affecting. It is a work that performs an entropic cycle of unreconciled traumas and historical betrayals, without ever becoming a lament for a lost past. It was a privilege for EVA to present this important work—along with newly commissioned elements—across venues in Ireland.”
ROMANTIC IRELAND was originally curated by Sara Greavu and Project Arts Centre for the Pavilion of Ireland at the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. The work was also recently exhibited as part of MIXED MESSAGES FROM THE IRISH REPUBLIC, a solo exhibition by Walshe at CHAPTER Cardiff, curated by Sim Panaser. The National Tour is supported by the Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon, as part of its commitment to promote the visual arts to Irish audiences. Ireland at Venice is an initiative of Culture Ireland in partnership with the Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon.
