An installation of live ambient broadcasts – a series of experiments that cast sound from here to there in rural western Ireland. The piece explores the threshold between a listener and a site and opens up a portal from here to there through live audio transmissions from a remote holy well to the town of Askeaton, Ireland. The holy wells that dot Ireland are also mythological and metaphysical thresholds – gateways to the Tïr na nÓg or land of youth. Beyond the surface of the well lies the other world awash with cyclical time, the source of wisdom, and a simultaneous reality that lives alongside our own.
During my time in Askeaton, I walked the land, made audio recordings, delighted in easy conversations with locals, and visited a half dozen holy wells on properties that surround the town. Coming from a dry California, I had never been on land that felt so vibrant and alive – water flowing over and through – layered with memories, histories, sadnesses, and delights.
The holy well at Barrigone is positioned down a set of stairs on the shore of the Shannon. From the well, you can observe bird life, a small quarry that goes back a thousand years, and in the distance the Aughinish Alumina plant with its dystopian smoke stacks and reddish fields of discarded industrial waste.
As I descended this small set of stairs down into the well at Barrigone, all other sounds faded away. By the first step into the well, I could no longer hear the cars from the nearby road. By the second step, a crab scurried across my shoes into the basin – rippling the water as it entered. As I take a third step my legs suddenly fly out from under me and I grasp the concrete wall for balance – I am new here!
In response to this special quality of place, I created a device that we came to call the Éist Machine – a radio transmitter that would broadcast live sounds from remote sacred wells back to the town of Askeaton. I hoped that the Éist machine could break space and time in its own way – situating us at the rim of the well in Barrigone, while we sit listening 10 kilometres away in the town of Askeaton. From our position in the Community Center, we can hear the birds, wind, and flow of water – a rupture where we can close our eyes and exist both in both places.This concept touches on systems and concepts such as regional biodiversity, the global climate crisis, and the water quality of the wells that dot this part of County Limerick in the shadow of contemporary life.
