Project Description

Derryoober National School in association with Arts Council Creative Schools

This 2025 I was fortunate to collaborate with St Brendan Derryoober National School in Galway on 2 mural projects, supported by the Arts Council Creative Schools Program.

We started by painting an indoor mural in the main hall of the school, which was a collaborative participatory process, designed to teach the children about mural design and to affairs them experience in the technical side of drafting, sizing up and painting a mural. All classes in the school came up with design elements and we combined these into one design which the children themselves drafted onto the wall. Our goal was to create a wall to wall piece that visually encompassed the values of the school and that would serve to brighten and enhance the hall area. See images below of the finished piece and of the process.

After completing our indoor Hall piece, we moved on to the Schools new outdoor chaining and storage building, marked as the mural site. The design requests were to incorporate a blackboard for the junior end of the school and to ensure that the road facing wall contained the main components, specifically the school name and crest. We set about considering our 3 walls and thinking about which design elements would suit each space. Then using the childrens’ combined designs I put together a draft design:

With some adjustments we commenced drafting and painting.

It took approximately 3 months to complete, with weekly visits and few delays from weather. A huge thanks to Slavek Kwi, Creative Schools associate for facilitating the collaboration, Principal Padraig Lohan, teacher Caroline and all the other staff and kids at Derryoober for having me and for their permanent good humour and positive attitude throughout the project.

Time Smythe Park Mural in assocation with EVA and Creative Ireland

In spring 2025 I  worked with a group of children from Ennis Voices for Autism to paint a mural on the wall of Tim Smythe Park, Ennis. Thanks to Evelyn Sorohan for managing the workshops and a big thanks to my co-facilitator Aideen Sweeney for her help, and to MC Paints Ennis for  generously donating the paint for the project.

During the workshops we discussed what would be suitable to include in the mural- and as the mural would be located in a park some of the ideas included- birds, dog walkers, play ground activities, trees, nature, people playing sports. The group sketched out idea and I incorporated them all into a rough design for the wall.

After checking everyone was happy with the design we drafted this on to the wall and got stuck in.

When painting we allowed the children to choose the colours they liked and add to the design as they felt appropriate- after all it was their work. We were very happy with the result and have gotten a very positive response from park goers.