At a long, mirrored table in Dublin Castle on Thursday evening, guests gathered around 1,845 handmade glass potatoes.
They symbolised the misery and death of the Great Famine and the table on which they lay reflected majestic ceiling frescoes in a room that continued to host high society as people died outside the gates.
“It represents a banquet of essentially death and the absence of food,” said the artist Paula Stokes, who was unveiling her work, 1845: Memento Mori, now in its fifth exhibition space.
“If you look up at the ceilings there are these beautiful paintings that were commissioned in the 1700s depicting Hibernia and Britannia ... this suggestion of mutual prosperity, this union between these two countries when the reality was the people who really were more prosperous were the British.
“That’s reflected on the mirror as well so it’s this beautiful juxtaposition between the reality.”
The memorial installation, on display in the Castle’s St Patrick’s Hall, is part of a long series of Famine commemorations supported by the Office of Public Works (OPW).
Ms Stokes blew the first glass potato 18 years ago while living in the US. It was the germ of an idea that would lead to the production of far more than the 1,845 now on display as part of the installation.
While the piece has previously been exhibited, Dublin Castle is especially significant as the former seat of colonial power.
Speaking at its launch, Dr Myles Campbell, curator of collections at Dublin Castle, said St Patrick’s Hall was rich in symbolism and was, at the time, the centre of elite social life in Ireland. The three ceiling paintings, he said, charted the history of the British presence.
“It is a painful truth, however, that during the Great Famine the pace of social life beneath that ceiling did not slacken,” he said.
“And while the most privileged in Irish society were dancing their nights away in St Patrick’s Hall, the landscapes beyond the castle gates were of course being stalked by death and disease.”
Former president Mary Robinson officially opened the exhibition, which will run daily until August 23rd.
Ms Robinson said that in previous conversation with the artist, Ms Stokes had demonstrated a clear knowledge of her subject matter.
Ms Robinson said the power of art had a role to play in modern crises too, notably global warming.
“We need artists to step up now and to portray for us where we are,” she said, evoking the power of symbolism.
“That’s what we need. Statistics don’t move people; political speech doesn’t move people; they have to be moved from the heart. It’s artists who can really move us.”
