Artist with strong Offaly links to feature in TV documentary

A respected artist with personal connections to Offaly – who is currently showcasing her work at Birr Theatre & Arts Centre – is to feature in an upcoming television documentary.

West of Ireland artist Marie Connole is presently exhibiting 'Macalla na Mara - Sea Memory' in Birr - in which she reimagines the legend of Cill Stuifín (Kilstipheen), a mythical city said to have been submerged beneath the Atlantic waves.

Her thoughts on the subject will feature in an upcoming documentary 'Cill Stuifín' on TG4 on Tuesday, October 13 (9.30pm).

Although based in the west and the Cill Stuifín story is rooted in her native Clare, Offaly was a major part of Marie's childhood.

She spent childhood summers with relatives in Clonsast, close to Bracknagh GAA club, and has many fond memories of Edenderry and Rathangan, as well as nearby Monasterevin, Portarlington, and Portlaoise. She also previously exhibited works at the Birr Vintage & Arts Festival, and still regularly visits her family in the region.

“I have very strong memories of Offaly from childhood,” Connole says.

“I remember the bogs, the woods and the trees. The landscape was so different from north Clare, but it became an important part of how I experienced the natural world.”

In 'Macalla na Mara', she said, 'delicate watercolours and evocative acrylic paintings transform the submerged city into both a physical and psychological landscape'.

The exhibition, she added, brings together new work with pieces from Connole's earlier 'Cill Stuifín' series, which has been exhibited at the Irish Arts Centre in New York, University of Galway, the Courthouse Gallery in Ennistymon, and Cultúrlann Sweeney Gallery, in Kilkee.

The Birr exhibition comes at an especially significant time for Connole. The TG4 documentary 'Cill Stuifín' won Best Irish Language Award when it was premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh this summer. Connole is one of several people interviewed in relation to the story, and it shows the development of her painting 'The Great Wave of Cill Stuifín'.

Connole has developed the 'Cill Stuifín' work over many years, drawing on folklore, landscape and the relationship between memory and place. Her wider practice encompasses painting, illustration and installation, and she has exhibited with EVA International, the National Gallery of Ireland, and the Royal Ulster Academy.

She is a recipient of the Decade of Centenaries Arts Award and the Agility Award, and recently illustrated the Clare County National Biodiversity Action Plan 2025–2031.

For Connole, bringing the work to Birr represents a return to a landscape that has been part of her own story since childhood - connecting the folklore of Clare with memories of Offaly, and an ancient legend with new work being made and exhibited today.

'Macalla na Mara - Sea Memory' runs at Birr Theatre & Arts Centre until mid-October.