Containing Crisis
The Fringe Out West, Strokestown Park House,
The National Famine Museum, Ireland
October 2011

Cooking a culinary concoction in this kitchen, Helena brings the past of this site into dialogue with the contingencies of the present. The performance takes into account the conflicting histories of shame and triumph synonymous with Strokestown Park House. The relationship between shortage and surplus, hunger and excess evoked by the ‘big house’ and its controversial role during the Great Irish Famine (1845-51) provides a framework for considering the Republic of Ireland’s economic collapse in 2010. The rise and fall of the Protestant Ascendancy, the assisted emigration of the staving Irish peasants administrated from the site during the Famine and the triumphalism inherent in the nationalist commemoration of the Famine during the Celtic Tiger era are referenced in the performance. These themes are considered in light of Ireland’s loss of economic sovereignty following its acceptance of an International Monetary Fund and European Union bailout and the vastly increased emigration from Ireland as unemployment soars. Through her ingredients (potatoes, soil, milk, menstrual blood and Catholic Holy Communion) Helena plays with the symbolism bound up in Ireland’s struggle for independence. In doing so, she offers a visceral challenge to nationalism’s containment of female sexuality.