No Irish Need Apply
Performance
I was never very good at changing the world. Over the years, I had been the head of various committees and efforts to improve the environment, restructure the local little league and halt overbuilding. The results were small, and the effort and stress were high.
I unplugged from organizing and started spending more of my time making images about my past, which I found was enjoyable and, in very small ways, helped others deal with their demons.
The rise of Trump made me rethink my approach. I knew I couldn’t go back to failed strategies of the past, but I found a door through my creative process. I had been researching my family ancestry and came to learn that when the Irish arrived in America after fleeing the potato famine of the mid 1800’s, they were greeted with the same mistrust, discrimination and hatred that current refugees find in America today. It led me to create a series of performance characters under the banner of “No Irish Need Apply”.
