Establishing a new home for the arts in Limerick - old lighthouse keepers home to be transformed

WHAT was once a home for the keepers of Beeves Rock lighthouse on the Shannon is now set to become a home from home for artists looking for a dedicated but temporary space in which to work.

The house, which has been in the Horrigan family for many years, has now become the dedicated headquarters of Askeaton Contemporary Arts.

It may not have the space and financial backing of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Co Monaghan or the dramatic scenery of the Cill Rialaig centre in County Kerry. But it will offer a warm, comfortable, sheltering and encouraging space in which artists can come and create.

For Michele Horrigan (pictured left below), who initiated the Askeaton Contemporary Arts festival, Welcome to the Neighbourhood in 2006, it is a dream realised in bricks and mortar. And it comes full of possibilities for the future.

Sixteen years ago, Michele’s festival idea was to have contemporary artists come to Askeaton for a week or fortnight, where they would engage with the local community and create work in response to or inspired by that immersion in the local area.

At the time, Michele had completed her BA at the Limerick College of Art and Design, followed by an MSA from the University of Ulster and had spent time at an international art college in Berlin.

“It was my first time outside the country and I started to look at what would be there for me if I was to come back,” she explained. As a young artist, she was discovering how difficult it was to get exhibitions.”

There were no artist-run spaces in Limerick and the Belltable or the Limerick City Art Gallery, she felt, were for people in mid-career. In thinking about making an opportunity for artists of her own generation, Michele also thought about her home-town of Askeaton. “Being away from it I could see its potential”.

As it happened, her ideas meshed with an initiative of the Arts Council, the Small Arts Festival Grant and, under the auspices of the local Askeaton Civic Trust, and with their support, the first Askeaton Contemporary Arts Welcome to the Neighbourhood took place.

“We ran it on a wing and a prayer that first year,” Michele recalled. But seven young artists came for a week, created some new work, and a new tradition was born in Askeaton.

In the years since, up to 100 artists have come and spent time in the town, mostly during festival week, staying in digs or in rented accommodation and exhibiting their work in shops, in empty premises, on the gables of buildings or on the street and taking part in various public programme events.

However, when a house became available three years ago, it galvanised the idea of having a dedicated space for people to stay and work and opened up the possibility of year-round residencies.

By then, Askeaton Contemporary Arts had also developed a publishing programme, ACA Public which included the work of wood artist Seanie Barron who specialises in making exquisite and magical walking sticks.

Then, during lock-down, they also started up a media channel to host filmed work and documentaries. One of these is a short docu-film which, under the direction of filmmaker Michael Holly, explored and featured Seanie Barron’ s work.

The film, Only in Askeaton: Seanie Barron went on to win the Short Film Audience Prize at last year’s Cork International Film Festival and was long-listed for the Oscars. It will now go forward to the Fastnet Film Festival in West Cork later this year.

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For Seán Lynch, Michele’s co-curator and husband, the strength of Askeaton Contemporary Arts has been its willingness to evolve. “It never settled down into being just one thing,” he observed. And he is, he explained, constantly struck by the new insights somebody from outside can bring to the town.

“There is always an exchange of knowledge, a nice interaction between people’s ideas and the local area. It can be an incident. It can be a small encounter.”

“Where you are is half the work. Why would you ignore it?” he continued.

For now though, Michele and, are looking forward to the official opening of the house.

“This house can also become a place for events, for exhibitions, a cultural hub,” enthused Michele.

The possibilities are boundless.