From May 2019 – March 2023, I was artist-in-residence at Killruddery House & Gardens in Bray, County Wicklow as part of a practice-based PhD at SMARTlab, Inclusive Design Research Centre of Ireland, University College Dublin – funded by Irish Research Council (IRC).  The research project Killruddery: Listening to the Archive was successfully completed in June 2023 with the award of my PhD under the guidance of my principal supervisor, the wonderful Prof Lizbeth Goodman, Director and co-founder of SMARTlab.

Killruddery is a beautiful estate with original 17th century ornamental gardens, home to the Brabazon family and seat of the hereditary title, the Earl of Meath. The family’s ancestor Sir William Brabazon was brought to Ireland by King Henry VIII during the period of the dissolution of the monasteries and rose to the rank of Vice-Chancellor. For his loyal service in “establishing the King’s authority” William was granted the former St.Thomas’ Abbey in The Liberties, Dublin in 1545, and the estate came with a summer house and retirement home for the monks at Killruddery.

Inspired by so-called Stone Tape Theory, my intention was to summon the sonic revenants of archive for the listener as they wander through the historic gardens, using the smartphone as a kind of modern-day divining tool. Stone Tape Theory asserts that the phenomena of ghosts can be understood as ancient ‘tape recordings’ captured by old buildings through a form of sound writing or phonography, and that through technological intervention, these spectres can be replayed as if they were recordings.

You can experience the resulting 90 minute soundtrail The Ancestors at Killruddery during normal opening hours (which are seasonal and advertised on their website). Follow this link to download the Echoes app and the geo-located soundwalk.

One of the audio essays “Walk This Place” created for soundtrail was published in  A Manual for Rematerialisation  by Creative Futures Academy in Ireland, in partnership with NCAD & IMMA and  exhibited at the Dublin Art Book Fair 2021. (The extract below was created to accompany the book and differs slightly from the version geo-located on the Killruddery estate.)