As a child, I looked forward to the days my mother went to town shopping. It meant that I had a couple of hours to play around the house to my heart’s content before she returned. One of my favourite places to explore was her bedroom. In the top drawer of the dressing table there was a photo album with a brown cover. This album was not kept with all the other albums. It was different. I remember manipulating the pages open for a little peek, and trying desperately not to leave any trace of my endeavours. The inside was filled with black and white images, photographs of people I did not recognise. This album was unlike all the others; the photographs were held in place with hinges and beautifully patterned interleaves lived between the pages. The only words inside, written on the back of a photograph, were in In Mid-Ocean.
In Mid-Ocean explores the Irish diaspora from the female perspective. It draws on the family archive - the photographs, letters and anecdotes from my mother’s time in England. These records and the album in my mother’s drawer mark my first exposure to this other life lived elsewhere. My mother’s images document the transnational life my parents led from the 1950s. Based in London, but longing to return home, their life was lived in mid-ocean, journeying back and forth across physical and cultural space.