Down At The Washbanks

In 2017, Jackie spent six months gathering research by walking the land and speaking to the knowledgeable locals of Ballyhaise. This locality is where she grew up and still lives today and so it was important to explore deep into its roots. The Exhibition itself launched in the beautiful Agricultural College in Ballyhaise in August 2017 as part of heritage week and creative Ireland. This was a huge success and it was wonderfully received by locals. Each print in the Scéalta Dàr dTalún exhibition tells a story of Ballyhaise land and the artwork is Jackie’s artistic interpretation of these stories, myths, and facts.

“As I walk through the Ballyhaise landscape regularly, I look, I listen, I wait. I know there are messages to be discovered from deep within the soil. I know we can’t know for sure what happened here before, my hope is to create a passageway for the viewer into the curiosities of the river Annalee, the one tree, the others trees, the harvests, the battles, along with the creatures and characters that might have previously walked this land.”

The following meaning comes printed as part of the product:

There is a lovely part of the Annalee river that flows through Drumholme and it is known by Ballyhaise locals as The Washbanks. Years ago on a hot days the youngsters of Ballyhaise would go there to swim, nowadays its too dangerous..I asked locals why it was named The Wash Banks and although nobody seemed to know for sure most people guessed it was where the women of Ballyhaise washed their clothes before the time of washing machines. Others said it was where bricks which were baked on the farm of the Agricultural College were washed. Another theory was that it was where the horses were washed. The last theory got me thinking of the resident white horse of the agricultural college known as The White Mare & about a water spirit from Irish mythology called Aughinsky. Aughinsky is a shapeshifter from the water and can take the form of a beautiful horse or a human being.