Hare-brained chronicles; jerry-built and gimcrack sequences; ethnic squabbles, and changing tides - these are the basal components that extend a place for my experience of the Irish language as a non-native speaker, and its shrapnel that has punctured wider aspects of the Irish identity within a contemporary Ireland.
These stories of mine have become laden with themes of stagnation and punishment, and of estrangement and reconciliation – in which they sit in some feverish, blended realm of painting and ethnofiction. This purgatorial world - fixed between a dissonant East and impalpable West Ireland - is something of a lodgings for the contrasting gaudy and earthy colourations of acrylic paint; buttery swellings of wax residue; and leaden charcoal whiffs and trails, that atone for my own muddled identity as a scantily clad Irishman.
The passive wrangles and defiance of eventuality, of an island burdened with the painful failures of communication felt by many in English-speaking Ireland - that both languages spoken here are not really our own - have pressed me to render
what this all really means outside of some
scholastic, greasy lump of a tome;
what it meant to them, and
why we’ll never feel at home.
![Gan Dia d’Éirinn (No God for Ireland)
Acrylic, conté and oil pastel on wood
85.5 x 122cm](https://2020.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/bairre-mac-raighne-barry-mcgrane/e5d79d7224-1711919010/1-of-10-bairre-mac-raighne-barry-mcgrane-1200x-q80.jpg)
Gan Dia d’Éirinn (No God for Ireland)
Acrylic, conté and oil pastel on wood
85.5 x 122cm
![Caochpholl (Pot-Boys and Peasant Whelps)
Acrylic and charcoal on wood
85.5 x 122cm](https://2020.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/bairre-mac-raighne-barry-mcgrane/02667b7544-1711919010/2-of-10-bairre-mac-raighne-barry-mcgrane-1200x-q80.jpg)
Caochpholl (Pot-Boys and Peasant Whelps)
Acrylic and charcoal on wood
85.5 x 122cm
![Ag Dul Siar (Two Dubs Gone Westward/Backward)
Acrylic and charcoal on canvas
50 x 40cm](https://2020.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/bairre-mac-raighne-barry-mcgrane/8b9c65e412-1711919010/3-of-10-bairre-mac-raighne-barry-mcgrane-1200x-q80.jpg)
Ag Dul Siar (Two Dubs Gone Westward/Backward)
Acrylic and charcoal on canvas
50 x 40cm
![Baoth (As Foolish as the Turkeys They Raised)
Acrylic, oil pastel and charcoal on canvas
21 x 15cm](https://2020.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/bairre-mac-raighne-barry-mcgrane/024a3989e1-1711919010/4-of-10-bairre-mac-raighne-barry-mcgrane-1200x-q80.jpg)
Baoth (As Foolish as the Turkeys They Raised)
Acrylic, oil pastel and charcoal on canvas
21 x 15cm
![Féach Gach Treo (Look Bothways)
Acrylic, oil pastel and charcoal on wood
28 x 20cm](https://2020.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/bairre-mac-raighne-barry-mcgrane/e08a846f88-1711919010/5-of-10-bairre-mac-raighne-barry-mcgrane-1200x-q80.jpg)
Féach Gach Treo (Look Bothways)
Acrylic, oil pastel and charcoal on wood
28 x 20cm
![Áit Bheag, Ghlas (Little, Green Place)
Acrylic, oil pastel and charcoal on wood
14 x 20cm](https://2020.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/bairre-mac-raighne-barry-mcgrane/d0adc3eebc-1711919010/6-of-10-bairre-mac-raighne-barry-mcgrane-1200x-q80.jpg)
Áit Bheag, Ghlas (Little, Green Place)
Acrylic, oil pastel and charcoal on wood
14 x 20cm
![Fadó (Bygone)
Oil pastel and charcoal on paper
42 x 29.7cm](https://2020.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/bairre-mac-raighne-barry-mcgrane/b903d2ea41-1711919010/7-of-10-bairre-mac-raighne-barry-mcgrane-1200x-q80.jpg)
Fadó (Bygone)
Oil pastel and charcoal on paper
42 x 29.7cm
![Codladh Sámh (Sweet Repose)
Acrylic, oil pastel and charcoal on wood
61 x 91cm](https://2020.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/bairre-mac-raighne-barry-mcgrane/e0f413b97b-1711919010/8-of-10-bairre-mac-raighne-barry-mcgrane-1200x-q80.jpg)
Codladh Sámh (Sweet Repose)
Acrylic, oil pastel and charcoal on wood
61 x 91cm
![Cáin na bhFuinneog (Window Tax)
Acrylic, oil pastel and charcoal on wood
20 x 14cm](https://2020.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/bairre-mac-raighne-barry-mcgrane/b54ae9a8aa-1711919010/9-of-10-bairre-mac-raighne-barry-mcgrane-1200x-q80.jpg)
Cáin na bhFuinneog (Window Tax)
Acrylic, oil pastel and charcoal on wood
20 x 14cm
![Gránna (Only a Mother Could Love That Thing)
Acrylic and charcoal on wood
14 x 20cm](https://2020.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/bairre-mac-raighne-barry-mcgrane/fbee63b821-1711919010/10-of-10-bairre-mac-raighne-barry-mcgrane-1200x-q80.jpg)
Gránna (Only a Mother Could Love That Thing)
Acrylic and charcoal on wood
14 x 20cm