Carrying the Songs

Written By Maria Noonan-McDermott

Delighted to share my painting, 'Notes from the Shore', selected for inclusion in Hamilton Gallery’s touring exhibition ‘Carrying the Songs’.

The exhibition launch at Pulchri Studio, The Hague, runs from 4th –26th July.

The opening reception will be addressed by Ireland’s Ambassador to the Netherlands, Dr Ann Derwin, poet Moya Cannon, author of Carrying The Songs and the Director of Pulchri Studio.

The exhibition is themed on Carrying the Songs a poem by Irish poet Moya Cannon. The poem is a prescient meditation on how music and song can be one of very few things people bring with them when forced from their homes, or to abandon their native country.    

Hamilton Gallery has curated several exhibitions in association with Irish Embassies abroad in recent years, involving hundreds of artists. Previous exhibitions, themed on the lives and work of writers Leland Bardwell, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin and Eva Gore-Booth have been shown in London, Beijing, Dublin, Berlin and New York.  The Gallery curated the exhibition Europe in the Heart of Ireland, featuring work by 100 Irish artists, which launched the Europa Gallery at the new EU Commission Building in Dublin in November 2024. Bloodroot, a Lá Fhéile Bríde exhibition in February 2025, curated by Hamilton Gallery in partnership with The Embassy of Ireland, The Netherlands, featured new paintings by 125 Irish women artists was shown at Pulchri Studios in February 2025.  

Carrying the Songs by Moya Cannon

For Triona and Mairéad Ni Dhomhnaill


Those in power write the history, those who suffer write the songs - Frank Harte

It was always those with little else to carry who carried the songs

to Babylon,

to the Mississippi -

some of these last possessed less than nothing

did not own their own bodies

yet, three centuries later,

deep rhythms from Africa,

stowed in their hearts, their bones,

carry the world's songs.

For those who left my county,

girls from Downings and the Rosses

who followed herring boats north to Shetland

gutting the sea's silver as they went

or boys from Ranafast who took the Derry boat,

who slept over a rope in a bothy,

songs were their souls' currency

the pure metal of their hearts,

to be exchanged for other gold,

other songs which rang out true and bright

when flung down

upon the deal boards of their days.

Maria Noonan-McDermott

Irish Artist Maria Noonan-McDermott Bio


Originally from Donegal, Irish artist and poet Maria Noonan McDermott now lives and works from her studio in Kinlough, Co. Leitrim.


Heavily influenced by the impressionist movement, her work focuses on the study of light and form in Irish landscapes.

With a love of folklore and story-telling, Noonan McDermott's influences lie in rural Ireland, it is in these magical places that share a colloquial history where stories and the people are often ingrained into the landscape.


I began my artistic career in Dublin in 1985 and qualified in Fashion and Design. I returned to college and completed a certificate in visual education before continuing on to study Fine Art. In the year 1990, I had my first solo exhibition of paintings. The feedback and encouragement I received helped direct me on my current path.


My work has always been influenced by a deep connection with the natural environment, the beautiful rugged Irish landscape with its endlessly changing skies and dramatic seas. I am equally fascinated by the people that the land holds so tightly and am firmly bound in kinship with their poetic writing, their stories and soulful lyrics.


I've always been in awe of the storyteller, those gifted people who so fluidly guide you into their fantasy worlds, who submerge you so deeply, you cry, laugh and often seethe with anger and frustration. To me, this is true magic, possessing the rare skill of creating something from nothing, evoking such passion and emotion.


Growing up I found words didn't come so easily to me, art and writing became my outlet. I was transformed into the 'Cailleach Feasa', the storyteller. I recorded and recollected all the tales from times gone by, breathing life back into places and quirky characters I met along the way.


I was raised in a small village in Donegal and like most small communities in Ireland, it was filled with the most amazing characters.


As a child, my head was filled with fantastical stories told and dramatised by neighbours and family, the gatekeepers of local history. These tales, were, of course, exaggerated and embellished with such fun and gusto, like only true Irish seanchai can, that I couldn't help growing up with a great love of the people around me and all their fascinating antics.


In my work, I narrate the stories with colour and humour as over the years they've formed and shaped in my memory.
My paintings become the text and you the reader and as the reader, you are challenged to participate and choose your own journey. Thus, enabling the story to live all over again!


This attachment is ingrained in my work and I strive to bring forth its warmth in the most honest and pure way I know how.

https://www.marianoonan-mcdermott.com
Next

The Earhart Art Prize for Female Artists of Ireland 2026.